In sugar belt, Pawar rebuilds clout seat by seat

MUMBAI: The equity of his party – an undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — was first dented in 2014 with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra and Devendra Fadnavis taking charge as chief minister. Last year the party received another harsh blow when NCP supremo Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar engineered a split.
Now, ahead of the assembly elections, the indefatigable Pawar, whose name has been synonymous with Maharashtra’s sugar belt, spreading from Nashik in the north to Kolhapur in the west, is out to regain lost ground. The region, covering seven districts with 86 assembly constituencies, is dotted with dozens of cooperative sugar factories, which had spurred its development.
The seven districts under Pawar’s watch are Pune, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Solapur, Ahmedngar and Nashik. Between them, they have around 30 per cent of the 288 assembly seats of the state.
This is the 83-year-old’s last attempt to build his own and his party’s – NCP (SP) – future. The veteran leader has been touring the constituencies in this region to identify possible candidates irrespective of their political leanings.
After the split, NCP (SP) was left with only seven MLAs who come from the sugar belt while the rest 26 are with the Ajit Pawar faction of NCP.
Ironically, the split in the party last year has brought a sea of options for Pawar, said party insiders – when most of his MLAs shifted their loyalties to Ajit Pawar, it gave the veteran leader a chance to look for fresh faces. Those who have been unable to get an opportunity to contest the assembly elections, despite working for the party for years, have become potential candidates now.
In Ambegaon assembly constituency in Pune district, senior NCP leader and minister Dilip Walse Patil has been an MLA for seven terms. The party never looked beyond Walse-Patil as he was a trusted Pawar aide. When he shifted allegiance to the Ajit faction, Pawar set his sight on Devdatta Nikam, who managed the day-to-day affairs of Ambegaon’s Bhimashankar cooperative sugar mill for 10 years as its president. The sugar mill, incidentally, was founded by Walse-Patil.
Nikam is not new to politics either – he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Shirur constituency in 2014, but lost to Shiv Sena’s Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil. He has been waiting in the wings since then. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, Pawar faction’s Amol Kolhe won with a significant margin from Shirur, defeating Adhalrao Patil who was fielded by NCP, led by Ajit.
In Kolhapur district’s Kagal assembly constituency, Pawar is out to give the ruling combine, Mahayuti, a tough run – he has inducted Raje Samarjeejsinh Ghatge, a BJP leader who contested the last assembly elections as an independent against NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and secured more than 88,000 votes. Mushrif, a former Pawar aide, is now a minister in the ruling alliance. While declaring Ghatge’s candidature at a rally, Pawar announced the need for change in the constituency.
In Ahmednagar district, the veteran leader has decided to field Amit Bhangre from Akole assembly constituency. He is the son of Ashok Bhangre, former president of Ahmednagar zilla parishad, who once shared a cordial relationship with Pawar. Pawar picked Bhangre, overlooking his former aide Madhukar Pichad and his son and Vaibhav’s willingness to return to the party fold (from BJP), said insiders.
“Vaibhav Pichad was defeated in 2019 by NCP’s Kiran Lahamate as people wanted change. Pawar decided people’s opinion about Pichad had not changed, hence he looked at a new face,” said an NCP (SP) insider, adding, with Bhangre, Pawar is also looking to ride on the goodwill of his father, who passed away in January, 2023.
Statistics reveal the extent of Pawar’s control on the sugar belt, especially during poll battles. In 2014, NCP had won 41 seats. Of them more than half — 23 seats – came from this belt. In 2019, it contested on 125 seats, in alliance with Congress and won a total 54. Of the wins, 33 were from this belt alone, which makes it almost two thirds of the total seats it won.
Pawar’s fresh picks — Nikam, Ghatge and Bhangre – are directly related to the cooperative sector. This belt has a strong network of cooperative bodies as a corollary to cooperative sugar mills and cooperative banks. “It becomes easier to identify candidates as those heading any cooperative body are bound to have a strong face in society,” said another senior leader.
Former MLA KP Patil, a frontrunner from the party, is likely to be fielded from the Radhanagari assembly constituency, in Kolhapur. He is the chairman of Bidri sugar factory, who joined the Ajit Pawar faction during the spit. He returned to the Pawar fold when it was clear that the seat would go to Shiv Sena’s Prakash Abitkar, a two term MLA from Radhanagari.
Several BJP leaders who are not likely to get a seat, thanks to Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s presence in the Mahayuti, have also approached Pawar. Former MLA Bapusaheb Pathare, who joined BJP in 2019, is likely to return to NCP (SP) and will most probably be fielded from the Wadgaon Sheri seat in Pune. Another BJP leader from Pune Harshvardhan Patil is also looking to contest from the Indapur seat as an NCP (SP) candidate, finding no assurance from BJP.
An NCP (SP) MLA said, Pawar rode on the negative impact of the split, in the last election. The same may hold good in the forthcoming election as well.
Insiders added, NCP (Ajit Pawar) MLAs such as Chetan Tupe and Atul Benke have been hobnobbing with Pawar faction leaders, given NCP’s drubbing in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Insiders say Pawar has identified most of the candidates in the sugar belt. “He is going really fast and has an idea of potential candidates in all the constituencies in the entire sugar belt. Not only districts, he has visited several constituencies multiple times to complete his homework before taking a decision,” said a Pawar aide. The octogenarian has found a quiet support in his most trusted aide Jayant Patil, who is also leading the party in the state. “Patil had the initial talks with former NCP MLC Babajani Durrani, who joined the party last month, and Ghatge,” said another aide.