With Modi in Baramati, Pawars make themselves scarce

Nationalist Congress president Sharad Pawar, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and Pawar senior’s daughter and Lok Sabha MP from Baramati Supriya Sule were nowhere to be seen as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed into their family stronghold of Western Maharashtra’s Baramati on Thursday

Text: Prasanna D Zore & Sanjay Sawant/Rediff.com

Photograph: Sanjay Sawant/Rediff.com

Party functionaries and workers at the NCP’s Baramati headquarters told Rediff.com that the senior Pawar was busy canvassing for party candidates in Beed district, from where late former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde’s won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and is now being contested by his daughter Pritam Munde.

“Pawarsaheb is the party president and a national leader of repute. He has to crisscross Maharashtra to canvass for his party,” one party functionary said. He also revealed that Supriya Sule is also emerging as a leader with huge following in Maharashtra and was also busy garnering support for her party candidates in Solapur district.

He however did not know about Ajitdada’s programme for the day. Another party functionary said that the junior Pawar could be canvassing in rural Baramati but added he could not confirm it.

Interestingly, in the absence of the three Pawars who hold a huge sway over voters in Baramati, it was left to Ajit Pawar’s wife, Sunetra, to campaign for her husband. However, the functionary said that her door-to-door campaigning in rural and urban Baramati had been altered in the wake of prime minister’s election rally in Baramati.

They said that the NCP rally, which is scheduled for October 13 will be the time when the Pawars will give a fitting reply to “Modi and his diatribes against our chief.”

Modi’s rally had had crowds anywhere between 1.5 lakh to 3.5 lakh people from neighbouring talukas (a unit of administration that is smaller in size than a district) of Indapur, Purandar and Morgaon. In a show of strength, the NCP is likely to garner more people in Baramati on October 13.

Meanwhile, Modi had a field day in Baramati as he stormed the town and launched a blistering attack on the uncle-nephew in their own family stronghold.

Coverage: Maharashtra Assembly Election