The city witnessed high-voltage electioneering drama on Thursday as the rival Pawar family contestants for the prestigious Baramati Lok Sabha seat - Supriya Sule and Sunetra Pawar - filed their respective nominations.
Ms. Pawar, who is the wife of Deputy CM and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar, was accompanied by top leaders of the ruling Mahayuti coalition, including Chief Minister and Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Devendra Fadnavis, senior NCP (Ajit Pawar) faction leader Praful Patel and Republican Party of India (A) president Ramdas Athawale, while filing her nomination.
As a precautionary step, Mr. Ajit Pawar filed a dummy nomination accompanied by his erstwhile foe-turned newly-minted friend Vijay Shivtare, a former Minister and senior leader of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
As candidate of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Ms. Sule, the incumbent Baramati MP and daughter of NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, was accompanied by her party colleague Dr. Amol Kolhe (who also filed his nomination for the Shirur Lok Sabha seat) and Ajit Pawar’s nephew, Yugendra Pawar, who has joined Sharad Pawar’s side in this contest.
The Mahayuti, which is straining every sinew to breach the hitherto impregnable citadel of Baramati, later a massive rally in the city which saw Ms. Pawar delivering her first election address.
In their respective speeches, Mr. Shinde and Mr. Fadnavis stressed that the Baramati contest was not one between Ms. Pawar and Ms. Sule but between Narendra Modi and Congressman Rahul Gandhi.
Crediting Mr. Ajit Pawar as the sole architect of Baramati’s development, CM Shinde, in his address, targeted Mr. Sharad Pawar by claiming that the people of Baramati had now decided to bring about a revolution.
“We must send Sunetra vahini to Delhi this time. ‘Ab ki baar, Sunetra Pawar’. Time and time againt, injustice was meted out against Ajit Pawar within the [undivided] NCP. There is a limit to a man’s forbearance. Hence, he joined us by placing PM Modi’s vision as his ideal,” Mr. Shinde said.
He took shots at the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi, wryly quipping, “While ISRO may have launched Chandrayaan, the Congress, despite 20-25 attempts could not launch Rahul Gandhi. He is 54 years of age but shows no maturity.”
Alluding to Ms. Pawar, Mr. Fadnavis said that Baramati’s ‘daughter-in-law’ would go to Delhi and that nobody could stop her. The BJP leader was referring to the Baramati contest being popularly described as a fight between ‘daughter’ (Ms. Sule being Mr. Sharad Pawar’s daughter) and ‘daughter-in-law’ (Ms. Pawar).
“This is not a fight between SupriyaSule and Sunetra Pawar but between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. The people of Baramati must decide whether to vote for development or regressive politics,” Mr. Fadnavis said.
While Mr. Ajit Pawar, targeting his uncle, exhorted voters again to not “fall prey to sentimentality” and “false propaganda”, Ms. Pawar, in her maiden election address, said that a vote for the clock (the Ajit faction’s party symbol) is a vote for Mr. Modi.
“Baramati has long been held up as a model for development throughout the country. This is the result of Ajitdada’s efforts He has never played politics over development,” Ms. Pawar said in her speech.
In contrast to the Mahayuti’s high-decibel rally, Ms. Sule’s rally stressed on ‘simplicity’ with the incumbent three-term Baramati MP sitting down on the ground along with her MVA allies during the course of her campaign programme.
“I have said right from the beginning this is not a fight within the Pawar family,” Ms. Sule said.
“I believe in my work so completely that I guarantee that even my critics will vote for me after reading my work report,” Ms. Sule added.
She further said that many thought that all was lost for their faction after the ECI awarded the NCP name and the clock symbol to the rival faction.
“Many thought we would sit crying, but I am the granddaughter of Shardabai Pawar [Sharad Pawar’s mother]. And my grandmother taught me not to cry, but to fight. So, we have resolved to fight with our full strength,” Ms. Sule said.
Baramati, one of the most keenly contested seats in the country, goes to polls in the third phase on May 7.
