Election in Pincodes: Pawar power tussle plays out in family bastion of Baramati

Mahadik has been associated with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for several years but now finds himself, like thousands of other loyalists, having to pick sides. He has chosen Baramati legislator Ajit Pawar, whose wife Sunetra is contesting against the sitting MP Supriya Sule in an electoral battle that is as much about the internal dramas of the Pawar family as it is about the dilemmas of a celebrated pocket borough.

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Mahadik, an energetic guide to the many charms of Baramati — despite scalding temperatures — cannot quite hide his consternation even as he rattles off Ajit Pawar’s contributions towards the making of the town. But “whoever loses on June 4 will be a Pawar still, and that’s saddening for us,” he rues.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) case for dismantling political dynasties becomes somewhat ironic when it says, ‘After A for Amethi, it’s B for Baramati’.

The fortunes of few constituencies have been as inextricably linked to a political family as Baramati’s have been to the Pawar clan. Sharad Pawar (Pawar saheb to people like Mahadik) has been a five-term MP from here, his daughter Supriya has served three terms, his nephew Ajit has been the Baramati MLA for seven terms, and it is a Pawar again who is the rising challenger. Without the family link, it would have been just another town in Maharashtra’s arid hinterland.

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Instead, Baramati town resembles an architect’s model. It has wide, evenly-tarred roads, good rail connectivity, a lushly-green academic complex, Vidya Prathishthan, spread over 126-acres that has colleges for medicine, bio-technology, engineering, law, arts, architecture and an upcoming institute for AI learning.

About 5,000 people are employed at the high-tech textile park spread over 60 acres where brands such as Cotton King, Peppermint and Pioneer have their manufacturing units. Adjacent to it is the state-of-the-art Shreiber Dynamix Dairy plant that processes a million litres of milk every day, and a few kilometres further down stands the Carver Aviation Academy, the first private flying school in India to receive an ISO 9001-2008 Directorate General of Civil Aviation-approved certification.

In the centre of the town is the massive edifice of the recently-built Natraj Natya Kala Mandir. “Pawar saheb has always believed that any town can only grow when it is also culturally evolved,” says Mahadik. The arts’ centre, now under Ajit Pawar’s patronage, reflects the contradictions at the heart of the NCP: Two portraits, larger than life-size, documenting Sharad Pawar’s brief career as a young theatre actor, occupy pride of place in the main hall. In its green rooms, however, stacks of fliers advertising the new NCP-BJP-Shiv Sena alliance and crates-full of campaign scarves imprinted with the analogue clock—Ajit’s party symbol — beggar journalistic clichés about whose time is it now.

“The problem is that while Ajit dada is predictable, Pawar saheb remains unpredictable,” says Mahadik.

That’s a legend many believe.

“Pawar saheb trained wrestlers in his youth; he always has a daav — a move — up his sleeve,” says Congress’ Atul Londhe at a rally for Supriya Sule at Pirangut on the outskirts of Pune.

The Baramati parliamentary seat has six assembly constituencies —Bhor, Baramati itself, Daund, Indapur, Purandar and Khadakwasala, where the National Defence Academy is.

Of these, Khadakwasala and Daund are represented by the BJP; Baramati and Indapur are with Ajit Pawar; while Purandar and Bhor are represented by Congress candidates. Seemingly, this should be advantage Sunetra Pawar but such is the cut-throat competitiveness of the state’s politics that powerful BJP chieftains in Daund and Indapur have been hard to placate as has been the Shiv Sena leader from Purandar, Vijay Shivtare. Until two weeks ago, Shivtare, who accuses Ajit Pawar of “wrecking his career,” was threatening to jump into the fray as an independent candidate. Baramati was not Ajit Pawar’s “private property,” he contended.

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For Supriya Sule, the support of Sangram Thopate, the Congress MLA from Bhor, is critical, but Thopate’s father Anantrao and Sharad Pawar have been old political foes. Early into her campaign, Sharad Pawar made two high-profile visits — one to the home of Anantrao Thopate to smoothen things over, and the other to the family home of his now-deceased Janata party rival Sambhajirao Kakade. Sambhajirao, two-term MP from Baramati, was one of the early proponents of sugar and bank cooperatives that remain the bedrock of western Maharashtra politics. Pawar’s message to Kakade’s family which retains certain influence in the constituency was: Let bygones be bygones.

Are nomenclatures of bonhomie —Maha Yuti, Maha Vikas Aghadi—then enough to contain the ill will, the overweening ambitions and the jealousies?

The family battle

A full moon hangs over the crowded dais at Pirangut. It’s the day of Hanuman Jayanti (April 23) which provides the perfect opportunity to ancillary speakers to launch into maudlin verse about devotion, loyalty at the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) rally for Supriya Sule.

“Apni peeth se nikle khanjaron ko gina maine/utne hi nikle jitnon ko gale lagaya tha,” (The scabbards in my back were as many as the number of people I had embraced) waxes Atul Londhe. The mood at the rally is festive and cacophonous. Tutari players (the instrument is also the symbol allotted to Sharad Pawar’s faction) brought in for the evening, hit crescendo with startling frequency. Sharad Pawar’s grand-nephew and the MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed, Rohit Pawar, makes a short, punchy speech for his aunt.

But the star of the show is Aaditya Thackeray who has now fashioned himself in the likeness of a young Balasaheb Thackeray with a fuller beard, big, broad-rimmed glasses, and powerful oratory. He accuses the BJP of running a Join or Jail campaign and draws parallels between the “twin betrayals” of his father and Sharad Pawar which draws thunderous applause.

There is drought in 28 talukas of Baramati and certain farm distress but the dominant theme of this election is Shakespearean back-stabbing. The candidate herself, though, refrains from speaking out against the family.

“I am battling the “adrishya shakti” (invisible forces) from Delhi,” says Supriya Sule on the drive to the next campaign stop at Mulshi. “I am among the top parliamentarians in the country for best performance in one of the government’s flagship programmes, Jal Jeevan Mission. I am also one of the toppers in the country for implementation of Vayoshree Yojana for senior citizens in my constituency. Roti, Kapada, Makaan, gutter, meter, water, schools, anganwadis… We managed to do it despite being in opposition,” says Sule who won in 2019 with a 52.63% vote share. “These people who have power from Kashmir to Kanyakumari could not find a candidate to fight against me so they had to go deep into my family to find a woman there to try and defeat me. She is six years my senior and while she may be my political opponent, she’s not my rival.”

The entire extended Pawar clan, including Ajit Pawar’s brother, is canvassing for Supriya Sule in various corners of Baramati. It’s something that Sunetra Pawar, a cool-eyed woman of gravitas, is mindful of. She frames the election as a contest between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. “This is the nation’s election, not some gram panchayat or family election. Vote for stability and development,” she says at a campaign stop at the temple of Firangai devi near Daund.

Sunetra Pawar, who managed her husband’s campaigns and canvassed door-to-door for Sule in previous elections, keeps her focus strictly on issues of agriculture, development and her ability to get work done, should she win. Her campaign is designed differently from Sule’s, privileging small corner meetings over larger rallies keeping in mind that she’s not yet a confident orator. But with her door-to-door campaigning for both Ajit Pawar and Supriya Sule, she has created her own network of influence. “Sunetra vahini knows at least one family member from every single family in Baramati town,” says Amar Mahadik.

Entitlement is an insatiable beast and so are pampered pocket boroughs. “There will be careful calibration”, says Mahadik, on May 7 when Baramati goes to poll on who can bring them better development. “Pawar saheb did start the industries, the sugar factories, MIDCs, the educational institutions in Baramati,” he concedes. “But it is Ajit dada who has built on them, who brought the water canal to this arid town.”

But Komal Washiwale, the NCP (SP) chief from Mulshi taluka has a different view. “The bank and dairy cooperative bosses may be with Ajit dada but the rank and file of the party is with Pawar saheb in this time of need,” she says.

This is the 14th in a series of election reports from the field that look at national and local issues through an electoral lens.