Daughter in tough contest, Sharad Pawar taps friends to rivals to clear her way

Sharad Pawar first won from Baramati in 1984. In 1991, Ajit, then his favoured protégé, won back the constituency and later vacated it to accommodate his uncle. Save for a couple of years that Pawar’s close associate Bapusaheb Thite represented the seat in Parliament, since 1996, Baramati has been represented first by Pawar and then Supriya, who has been the MP since 2009.

Now, with the NCP having split and Ajit, the Deputy CM, has taken to intensive campaigning to defeat Sule with the help of the BJP and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena.

To help his daughter, Sharad Pawar has started reaching out to his old associates, rivals, and various communities in Baramati. Last Saturday, Pawar visited the home of his long-time rival Anantrao Thopte in Bhor before attending a public rally organised by Congress MLA and Anantrao’s son Sangram Thopte in support of Sule. At the event, Pawar announced Sule’s candidature and also assured Thopte that “whatever he does for Bhor, Pune district, state or country will get Sharad Pawar support”. “We may have been on different paths earlier,” Pawar said.

At the meeting with Anantrao, other senior Congress leaders such as Balasaheb Thorat and Nana Navale were also present. In January, Pawar shared the dais with BJP leader and Ajit’s longtime rival Harshvardhan Patil at a non-political function.

Apart from holding these meetings, Pawar has also addressed separate rallies of the Holar community, lawyers, and doctors. While Sule has always sought votes in her father’s name, and projected the image of being her father’s daughter, this time the senior leader in his speeches is keeping the focus on her and not him. But everything has not gone according to plan. Pawar recently organised a meeting with traders in Baramati town but they conveyed their inability to attend. Expressing shock, the leader whose faction now bears the name NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) said the traders’ snub was something that had never happened to him in the last five decades in Baramati and that the “traders seemed to be under some fear”. Later, to placate him, the traders told Sharad Pawar that they would soon organise a rally for him.

This outreach by his uncle has got Ajit to also reach out to communities in Baramati. The Deputy CM has addressed seven rallies till now, including an address to Muslims on Thursday.