Congress and NCP set to retain hold in western Mahrasrahtra
mumbai — Western Maharashtra, with 10 Lok Sabha constituencies, is politically the most important part of the state, and a stronghold of the CongressNationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena have been desperate to make inroads, but have failed to win much support. The Hindutva parties are finding it a formidable challenge even this time and despite the huge crowds that attended the series of meetings addressed by Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate across the region, they are not expected to make much of a dent.
The electorate in the 10 constituencies will be voting on Thursday (along with voters in nine other constituencies in the state). In the outgoing Lok Sabha, both the Congress and the NCP have three seats, and an NCP rebel is the MP from another seat. The BJP and the Shiv Sena won just one seat each in the region in 2009.
Western Maharashtra has sent a large number of leaders to the centre, right from Yashwantrao Chavan (a former state chief minister), who was the deputy prime minister of the country in the late 1970s. Even in the outgoing UPA cabinet, two heavyweight ministers — Sharad Pawar (agriculture) and Sushilkumar Shinde (home) — are from western Maharashtra.
Pawar, who won the 2009 elections from Madha constituency, has opted to enter parliament from the upper house (Rajya Sabha) this time. Shinde, who won from Solapur with a margin of 100,000 votes in 2009, is seeking re-election from the same seat.
The Congress-NCP dominates the political landscape in the affluent sugarcane belt, which stretches southwards from Pune, covering major centres including Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur.
The NDA’s presence is restricted to Ahmed- nagar (from where the BJP’s Dileep Gandhi won the election in 2009) and Shirur, from where the sitting Shiv Sena MP, Shivajirao Adhalrao is contesting again.
The NDA has also roped in popular farm leader Raju Shetty of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, the sitting MP from Hathkanangale in southern Maharashtra, this time. Shetty is popular among the farmers in the Satara-Kolhapur belt and is expected to help other NDA candidates in the area.
The erstwhile royal families of Satara and Kolhapur are also a major factor in the sugarcane belt. Udayanraje Bhosale, a direct descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the 17th century Maratha warlord, and sitting MP from Satara (he won with a massive 300,000 vote lead over his nearest rival in 2009), is again contesting on the NCP ticket.
Bhosale has had differences with Pawar, but the NCP has backed him. Not so lucky was Sambhaji Raje Chhatrapati, a member of the erstwhile royal family from Kolhapur. In 2009, he was defeated by an NCP rebel candidate, Sadashivrao Mandlik, and this time, the party refused to give him the ticket.
The NCP has fielded Dhananjay Mahadik, a former Shiv Sena leader. The Sena has given the ticket to Sanjay, who is the son of Sadashivrao Mandlik, the sitting MP.
The NCP is confident of winning from two other constituencies in western Maharashtra — Baramati, where Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule is seeking re-election; and Madha, from where another member of a former royal family, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil (who is also a former deputy chief minister of the state) is contesting.
The Congress has fielded its sitting MP — and junior minister — Prateek Patil from Sangli, Shinde from Solapur and opted for Vishwajeet Kadam, son of education tycoon and senior minister Patangrao Kadam from Pune, replacing the controversial Suresh Kalmadi.