Nation / Sat, 04 May 2024 The Indian Express

NCP family turf Baramati split over Pawar play: Saheb or Dada

“Ek hi Pawar hain yahaan… Sharad Pawar (there is only Pawar here, Sharad Pawar),” is the instant comeback. There won’t be a consensus; we will just vote as individuals,” says the man who was also the classmate of Srinivas Pawar, Ajit Pawar’s brother who has sided with Sharad Pawar. “We owe our loyalty to the senior Pawar who converted this dry land into a modern city with all the facilities. The third, Baramati Agro Limited, remains with Rohit Pawar, whose loyalty is with Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule. So our vote goes to vehini (Sunetra).” Patil’s seat is flanked by two portraits – of Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar – and he wears a badge with pictures of Ajit Pawar and Sunetra on it.

An autorickshaw plastered with election posters stands in the middle of a busy market blaring out its message on the PA system, “Apki baar…Sunetra Pawar!”

The Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) may have managed to cleverly tweak ally BJP’s slogan to its advantage, but in Baramati, the proprietorship of the Pawar surname is another story altogether. For, to those who say “Pawar Saheb” to indicate which way their votes are headed, pointing out even teasingly that both are Pawars is blasphemous. “Ek hi Pawar hain yahaan… Sharad Pawar (there is only Pawar here, Sharad Pawar),” is the instant comeback. “Haan doosre bhi hain, par woh dada hain” (Yes, there is another, too, but he is dada (elder brother)”.

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From knowing Saheb (Sharad Pawar), dada (‘elder brother’ Ajit Pawar), tai (‘sister’ Supriya Sule) and vehini (‘sister-in-law’ Sunetra Pawar) as members of the one big benefactor Pawar family to now seeing them standing on opposite side of the political arena, is a first for the 23.15 lakh electorate of Baramati that stands almost as divided today as the Pawar family itself, with the lines intensifying as it edges closer to election day on May 7. But after having absorbed the initial shock of the NCP’s split, they have by now come to terms with the situation and have their allegiances mapped out.

The high-profile Baramati Lok Sabha seat in western Maharashtra has become one of the most keenly contested battles of the 2024 general elections. With three-time MP and Sharada Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule taking on Sunetra Pawar, wife of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who split from the National Congress Party (NCP) and joined the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance last year, the fight is as much about the Pawars, as about power.

“We don’t feel good about taking sides, but there is no option now,” says Suresh Jadhav, 60, a pharmacist who has voted in every election in Baramati in the last 25 years and rues that for the first time there is a division not just in the Pawar family but also his own.

The Maharashtra transport’s new bus Stand in Baramati. (Express Photo By Pavan Khengre) The Maharashtra transport’s new bus Stand in Baramati. (Express Photo By Pavan Khengre)

“We are 14 voters in our large joint family. While the elders like me are with Sharad Pawar, because we have seen how he has changed Baramati. The youngsters are with Ajit Pawar as he’s the one they have seen running the city. There won’t be a consensus; we will just vote as individuals,” says the man who was also the classmate of Srinivas Pawar, Ajit Pawar’s brother who has sided with Sharad Pawar.

“Sule, no doubt. And tai will win by a margin of over two lakhs,” declares Subhash Lokhande, a fruit seller who has been voting for the last 15 years. “Ajit dada, who else?” asks the manager of a three-star hotel nearby. “Pawar Saheb… He has made Baramati like Pune for the students,” smiles Payal Kothari, 21, a first-time voter and final-year student of BE at the 260-acre educational complex of Vidya Pratishthan.

Until the 1980s, Baramati was little more than an arid ruralscape. Today, their two aviation academies and the expansive Vidya Pratishthan, a trust run by the Pawar family that has 17 schools and 12 colleges, including those for law, IT and architecture, make the city an education hub rivalling Pune. The unmissable presence of Schreiber Dynamix dairy and the 110-acre Krishi Vigyan Kendra, which is currently experimenting with AI for sugarcane cultivation, is a sign of the successful merger of Baramati’s rural and urban economy. The impressive new cultural centre, Natraj Natya Kala Mandir, and the swanky Baramati club are snapshots of a new Baramati and the changing lifestyles of its residents.

The Carver Aviation institute in Baramati. (Express Photo by Pavan Khengre) The Carver Aviation institute in Baramati. (Express Photo by Pavan Khengre)

Drive towards the airport and you won’t miss the 50-acre Ferrero Rocher plant that employs about 7,000 people, at least 80 per cent of them from Baramati. The other Italian group, Piaggio, has three factories in Baramati, with the latest one producing Vespa scooters, and has brought in over 3,000 jobs since 2012. Then there is Kalyani Steels, one of the oldest plants in the Baramati MIDC, which employs over 5,000 people in its high-tech textile park spread across 60 acres.

The latest addition to Baramati includes the government medical college that came up in 2019 with the first batch of 100 students having graduated now. “It’s the first medical college at the taluka level in Maharashtra and we have great infrastructure and facilities,” says Dr Chandrakant Mhaske, the Dean. Then there is the state-of-the-art bus stand that rivals an airport in design and facilities.

All of this, along with the kilometres of freshly tarred roads lined with trees, huge green spaces, modern residential apartments and lavish malls – and you can see why Baramati has been designated as a model city.

The question, though, is, who is to be credited with the massive makeover? The man who started it all in the late 1980s or the one who ran it on his behalf as the former moved onto higher responsibilities for almost two decades. And this is the crux of the conundrum as Baramati votes on May 7.

Chandrakant Mane, 48, a manager at Piaggio, however, says there is no confusion in his mind. “We owe our loyalty to the senior Pawar who converted this dry land into a modern city with all the facilities. How can we forget the man who made this possible – Saheb. Ajit Pawar was just the medium.”

It’s this almost deified status of the senior Pawar that Sule is banking on as she makes her way through Baramati’s Amrai slums, where she plucks mobile phones out of the hands of admirers thronging to take her picture and instead takes a selfie with them. The next minute, she is touching the feet of an octogenarian and asking her to pose for the camera with three fingers held out (three is the number allotted to NCP-Sharad Pawar on the EVM machines). Amidst the beating of drums and high-decibel tutaris (the trumpet that is part of her party symbol), Sule promises the crowds that she will continue to address their water woes, agrarian crisis and pollution issues. “My honesty, integrity and my work will ensure my comeback. Voters of this constituency are very intelligent. Baramati is the best example of the Sharad Pawar model of integrating agriculture with industry. The results of his untiring efforts are for all to see,” she says.

Indeed the Baramati Krishi Vigyan Kendra or KVK, also Sharad Pawar’s “favourite project” that aims at swift transfer of technology from the institute to the farmers, is a hard act to follow. “Of the 171 KVKs in the country, this is the leading one,” says Dr Dheeraj Shinde, senior scientist and head at the centre.

As people in Baramati talk about this and the other projects launched by the senior Pawar, there is also an emotional pull. “This may well be his last election, we cannot betray him,” says a retired teacher.

But at the other end of the spectrum are the city’s original usherers of prosperity and progress – the sugar and dairy co-operatives.

Sugarcane is the main crop in Baramati and of the three co-operative sugar factories, two – Someshwar Co-operative Sugar Factory and Malegaon Co-operative Sugar Factory – are clearly with Ajit Pawar. The third, Baramati Agro Limited, remains with Rohit Pawar, whose loyalty is with Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule.

The Baramati Taluka Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union and its board of directors have also sided with Ajit Pawar. One of the main reasons is that while the senior Pawar was busy with national and state-level politics, Ajit Pawar was allowed a free hand in the local cooperative bodies where he handpicked most of the directors.

In his office at the Malegaon sugar mill, Director Rajendra Shankarrao Dhawaan Patil says, “Initially the split in the NCP confused us. But now we can’t really leave Ajit dada. He is the one who has worked with us on the ground. So our vote goes to vehini (Sunetra).” Patil’s seat is flanked by two portraits – of Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar – and he wears a badge with pictures of Ajit Pawar and Sunetra on it.

Not many mention vehini (sister-in-law). But Sunetra Pawar, busy with campaigning in the Assembly constituencies of Bhor, Daund, Indapur, Purandar and Khadakwasla, before she arrives at Baramati on Sunday for the final mega rally, is happy to simply remind people of the work done by her husband. Aware of the loyalty wave for Saheb that may sweep away this narrative, she has coined yet another catchy phrase, “Vote keeping in mind not your bhavana (emotion) but your bhavishya (future).”