Why a Baramati sugar mill contest is spicing up Maharashtra politics

While Ajit has fielded his panel for the 21 posts of the Malegaon Cooperative Sugar Mill, he is himself running for the chairman position. Adding further spice to the contest, after Ajit’s entry, Sharad Pawar announced he was putting up own panel too, with the uncle and nephew rivalry now playing out in the mill, located on the family turf of Baramati and long a Pawar fiefdom.

Before the NCP split, Ajit “managed” the running and politics of almost all cooperative bodies in the region, including the Malegaon mill. In 2019, its outgoing board pledged their support to Ajit in both the general and state Assembly elections; now their loyalties are seen as divided between him and Pawar Senior.

It is the first time Ajit is contesting a cooperative election since 1984, when he fought for chairmanship of the Chhatrapati Cooperative Sugar Mill in Indapur. He was a young politician then, and the sugar mills were a sure-shot route to the top in politics in the state.

While Ajit has put up the ‘Nilkantheshwar Panel’ in the election, Pawar Senior’s ‘Baliraja Sahkar Bachao Panel’ is led by his grandnephew Yugendra Pawar. Ajit incidentally defeated Yugendra in last year’s Assembly elections from Baramati, adding another layer to the Malegaon contest.

The Malegaon mill’s functional area is about 37 villages, and the electorate for the June 22 polls are the 20,000 farmer members of the mill, who are also shareholders in the cooperative. Pawar Senior and Ajit are among the members. The mill’s VIP status is reinforced by its reputation of compensating its member farmers well.

Besides these two panels, the ‘Sahakar Bachao Shetkari Panel’ led by known Pawar baiter Chandrarao Taware, is in the race, along with a panel of Independents. The Tawares, who have for long been the only ones standing between the Pawars and their total dominance of Baramati, joined the BJP in 2019.

Incidentally, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, Pawar Senior had paid a surprise visit to Chandrarao. It was seen as a bid to bury the hatchet by the veteran politician ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in which his daughter Supriya Sule faced Ajit’s wife Sunetra from the Baramati seat. While Sunetra lost, the Tawares by their own admission voted for the NCP (the Ajit faction, that is) for the first time, and repeated the same in the Assembly elections that followed.

For the cooperative elections, despite Ajit being its partner, the BJP has not got the Tawares to withdraw. This is one reason for the NCP chief joining the race, as per sources. Ajit reportedly fears that if he stays out, a split in votes between him and Pawar Senior’s panel could help the Taware panel win, and allow the BJP a toehold in a sphere where he currently has complete dominance within the Mahayuti.

Ranjan Taware’s son Ajinkya does not discriminate between the uncle and nephew in attacking the family. “Our fight is to save the very basics of cooperatives, something that the Pawars want to destroy,” he says.

Since declaring his candidature, Ajit has been campaigning aggressively. A remark by Pawar Senior earlier this week, expressing dissatisfaction with certain people for “refusal to share positions of power” (seen as a dig at Ajit), is also said to have been provoked by the Malegaon contest.

While the general opinion is that Ajit does not want to concede any ground in Baramati, another resident, who does not want to be named, says it’s all about money. “Dada manages multiple private mills in the region, including through his supporters, and thus wants to control the price of cane. In case the Malegaon mill announces a higher price, he would have to quote higher prices too.”