In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, though the BJP swept Maharashtra, it still had one Achilles’ heel, western Maharashtra — a bastion of the Congress and the NCP — where it could not foray beyond a point, winning only four of 10 seats. And while the BJP has tried to bring the region’s heavyweights to its side, with the support of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP being its most important acquisition, Sharad Pawar has also been at work to ensure this fortress doesn’t slip out of his grasp.
Pawar — whose party draws most of its strength from the region — has stitched together a front of senior NCP-Congress leaders by bringing a key political clan from western Maharashtra’s Solapur back into the fold from the BJP and convincing an erstwhile royal from Kolhapur to contest on a Congress ticket.
Speaking to ThePrint, Pawar said things are different in western Maharashtra. “Except for Sangli, we have a strong case for all the other seats,” he said.
However, the BJP has also tried to counter these moves. Uttam Jankar, a prominent leader of the Dhangar community from Solapur’s Malshiras taluka, was flown to Nagpur in a private chartered plane to meet Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on 15 April. Jankar’s support is key in the Solapur and Madha constituencies, which have a sizeable Dhangar population — nearly 10 lakh, according to local leaders. The BJP has also given a ticket to Udayanraje Bhosale, its Rajya Sabha MP and a member of an erstwhile royal family, to contest from Satara.
BJP leaders said they still stand a good chance. “In western Maharashtra, we will be able to make good inroads, and we, the ruling alliance, will have success,” Maharashtra Minister of Revenue, Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil told ThePrint. “There is a coordinated effort by all of us. Sharad Pawar is contesting 10 seats, which shows the drawback of the Opposition. Naturally, with Ajit Pawar joining the Mahayuti, we will see significant success,” he said.
Western Maharashtra has been a NCP-Congress bastion for a long time, with the presence of the Shiv Sena in some pockets. Widely known for its sugar belt, the region is agriculturally rich and influenced by the politics surrounding the cooperative sector, which includes sugar, dairy, and credit societies and even banks. The sugar bowl of the state has also flourished due to industries and educational institutes that support its agricultural sector.
“Western Maharashtra’s importance is because of cooperative movements, especially in the sugar sector. The region, especially Satara, Sangli, and Kolhapur, where educational institutes have flourished, has seen all-round development. Cooperative movements also helped political parties grow, and the BJP knows this very well,” said political analyst Hemant Desai.
He added: “But, because of the cooperative sector, a ruling class has also prospered, and therein lies the strength of the NCP-Congress, which the BJP wants to break.”
Due to Pawar’s political manoeuvres, several seats in the belt are likely to see a close contest.
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Why western Maharashtra is important
Western Maharashtra is divided into five districts — Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Solapur — and includes 10 Lok Sabha seats: Pune, Maval, Shirur, Baramati, Solapur, Madha, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Hatkanangle.
Most of these constituencies, except Pune, Maval, and Shirur, are going to the polls on 7 May, in the third phase.
Many of the most prominent Maratha political leaders have come from the region. Five of the 19 chief ministers of the state since its formation in 1960 were from western Maharashtra. The first CM, Yashwantrao Chavan, was from Karad, Vasantdada Patil from Sangli, Sharad Pawar from Baramati and Prithviraj Chavan from Karad.
In 2004, the NCP-Congress combine won eight of 10 Lok Sabha seats in western Maharashtra, with the BJP and the Shiv Sena winning one seat each.
In 2009, the NCP-Congress won six seats (three each) while the Shiv Sena won two and BJP failed to win any seat.
Then in 2014, the NCP won four seats, but the Congress was wiped out, while the BJP won three seats amid the Modi wave and the Shiv Sena retained its two seats.
In 2019, the NCP won three seats, the BJP four and the Shiv Sena three as the saffron hold continued.
To increase their overall tally this election, the NCP and the Congress, with the support of the Shiv Sena (UBT), need western Maharashtra.
Sharad Pawar — architect of MVA prospects in Solapur-Madha
The key to an NCP-Congress resurgence is the Solapur-Madha region, where Sharad Pawar has brought together two veteran leaders — the NCP’s Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil and the Congress’s Sushilkumar Shinde.
“At some point in life, a person’s self-respect stands up to the pressures of politics. And that is why I could convince people to come back and fight with us,” said Pawar.
“We all believe in the Nehru-Gandhi and Yashwantrao Chavan ideology, and our politics is development-oriented and progressive in thought. We believe that the agro-industry-based society should be there, and we developed the cooperative sector accordingly. We developed our politics around it,” he said.
“But, when Narendra Modi came (to power) in the Centre and Devendra Fadnavis here in the state, they started enquiring about factories and institutes and taking action against them, and people, fearing their factories and institutes would go away, sided with the ruling party. But, for democracy, in the last few days and months, we have had a dialogue with these people to come up with a constructive approach once again,” he added.
Former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Mohite-Patil and his family, who are from Malshiras in Solapur, have considerable influence in western Maharashtra. Once a Congressman, he shifted to the NCP when Pawar formed the party in 1999. Since then, he has remained in the NCP. From 2003 to 2004, he was deputy to then CM Sushilkumar Shinde, also from Solapur.
In his five-decade career, Mohite-Patil helped set up sugar mills in the drought-hit Solapur, and is credited with ushering in economic prosperity in the region. He won the Madha Lok Sabha seat in 2014 — succeeding Pawar as MP — despite the Modi wave.
“Solapur and Madha have overlapping assembly constituencies. And Mohite-Patil and (Sushilkumar) Shinde had a clear division of hold over Solapur. Shinde would look after the city affairs, and Mohite would take care of the rural areas,” said a Congress worker close to Shinde.
Over the past few years, however, the two leaders grew apart as both started losing power, he said. Then, in 2019, Mohite-Patil’s son Ranjitsinh joined the BJP, and since then, the family was seen to be aligned with the party.
However, Pawar has now brought the two leaders together under the MVA banner, with the party fielding Mohite-Patil’s nephew, Dhairyasheel, as the NCP (SP)’s Madha candidate.
According to party insiders, BJP repeating Madha sitting MP Ranjeet Naik Nimbalkar was one of the triggers for Mohite-Patil to return to backing the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
On the other hand, Shinde’s MLA daughter, Praniti Shinde, will contest from Solapur. Shinde, a Dalit, was Maharashtra CM from 2003 to 2004, Andhra Pradesh governor from 2004 to 2006, became the Union power minister in 2006 and the home minister later.
On 15 April, when Mohite-Patil joined hands with Shinde and Pawar in Solapur’s Akluj, it was a telling picture.
— Vijaysinh Mohite Patil (@VMohitePatil) April 15, 2024
“The situation looks much better this time compared to five years ago. Sharad Pawar has always been our leader and brought us back together in our district,” Shinde told ThePrint.
He added: “When I had gone to Akluj, and we three were sitting together, people came up and said the picture looks complete now. These are like earlier days. It will positively impact both constituencies (Madha and Solapur).”
This, however, did not happen suddenly, said Pawar. “In a democracy, dialogue is necessary. We slowly tried to convince them. We told them, ‘You are being troubled, and they (BJP) are enquiring about you and might even arrest you, but we will fight,’” he said.
What spells more trouble for the Ajit Pawar-led NCP is that Jankar, who is with his faction, has openly supported the candidature of Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil from Madha.
Although Uttam Jankar gave his support to the MVA candidate, BJP has been able to convince Dhavalsinh Mohite-Patil, the cousin of Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil, to back its candidate, Nimbalkar. Dhavalsinh, the Solapur district Congress president, faces an FIR for allegedly beating a man to death in January this year.
Speaking to the media Sunday, Fadnavis said, “It was the BJP that stood behind the Mohite-Patil family when Pawar tried to finish their political career.”
BJP leader and state revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe–Patil said, “See, ultimately, people are going to vote for Narendra Modi. They won’t vote for Sharad Pawar or Mohite. The BJP rehabilitated Mohite. Why should people vote for Mohite and his family when the BJP rehabilitated him? The election is not a local Vidhan Sabha or zila parishad election.”
When Shinde lost the election in Solapur last time, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi chief Prakash Ambedkar was also in the fray, coming third with 15.68 percent of the vote. But, this time, Rahul Gaikwad, the VBA candidate, withdrew his nomination and joined the Congress.
“A combination of these factors will impact the election results in Solapur, Madha, and to some extent, Baramati and Satara. These districts are quite interconnected,” said political analyst Abhay Deshpande.
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Close contest in several seats
The MVA has fielded Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, a twelfth-generation descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, from Kolhapur against Sanjay Mandlik, the candidate of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Respected across Kolhapur, this head of the erstwhile royal family will fight the elections on the Congress symbol.
“He is getting a good response, and many civil society groups and intellectuals have also supported him,” Bunty Patil, a Congress leader from Kolhapur who is handling Shahu Maharaj’s campaign, told ThePrint.
Hatkanangale constituency is seeing a three-way fight, with the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Satyajeet Patil locked in a tight contest with Dhairyasheel Mane from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and farmer leader Raju Shetti making it difficult for both as an Independent candidate. The MVA tried to bring Shetti into its fold but it didn’t work out.
The Satara seat is expected to see a close fight between a fresh face from NCP (SP), Shashikant Shinde, who is an MLC and leader of Mathadi workers, and Udayanraje Bhosale, another of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s descendants, who the BJP has renominated.
Bhosale’s nomination came after a long consideration. He contested on an NCP ticket and won the seat in 2019. But soon after, he chose to go with the BJP and contested the election again but did not win.
Shirur, an NCP seat, is where sitting MP Dr Amol Kolhe is seeking a second term by contesting on NCP (SP)’s man-with-trumpet symbol against the Ajit Pawar faction’s Shivajirao Adhalrao.
Adhalrao had sided with Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) after the split, but after a long tussle, the seat fell into the kitty of NCP (Ajit Pawar) in the Mahayuti alliance. So, Adharao has now decided to contest the seat on the NCP symbol.
A few weeks ago, a war of words between Kolhe and Ajit Pawar ended in Pawar taking it upon himself to defeat Kolhe, with the chances of a tough contest for this seat now high.
Pawar, however, is facing one of his toughest battles in his hometown, Baramati, where his daughter Supriya Sule is contesting for the fourth time and is locked in a contest with her sister-in-law, Sunetra Pawar, wife of Ajit Pawar.
Finally, in Pune, there is a direct fight between the MVA and the BJP. Buoyed by success in the Kasba-Peth assembly bypolls in Pune in 2022, the MVA decided to field their winning horse, Ravindra Dhangekar, for the Pune Lok Sabha seat. He is locked in a tight contest with Pune Municipal Corporation’s former commissioner Murlidhar Mohol, a popular face among the Punekars.
“In Pune, The BJP has an upper hand. The BJP has a base in Pune, so they have an advantage as changed political equations might not dent the party’s prospects in the seat,” said Deshpande.
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Sangli — a thorn for MVA
From Sangli, the home district of former CM Vasantdada Patil, his grandson Vishal Patil was keen on getting the ticket. However, Shiv Sena (UBT) fought hard to get the seat for its candidate, Chandrahar Patil.
This triggered a bitter row between the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Congress’ Sangli unit led by MLA Vishwajeet Kadam, who took the issue to Delhi to convince the central leadership to hand over the seat to the Congress.
But unwilling to relent, Thackeray did not part ways with the seat, and “Delhi leadership feels it is important to save the alliance now, and Thackeray has sympathy towards him”, a senior Congress leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
This led to Vishal Patil fielding his nomination as an Independent, converting the two-way contest into a triangular fight — the MVA’s Chandrahar Patil vs Independent Vishal Patil vs BJP’s Sanjaykaka Patil. Pawar himself has said that Sangli will be a tough battle for the MVA.
On Thursday, at a Congress rally of the Sangli unit, Vishwajeet Kadam, in the presence of senior state leaders, expressed his displeasure and announced that he and his workers would support Chandrahar Patil “unwillingly”. “But things could be different during the upcoming assembly elections later this year,” he added.
“Sangli is now a problem for MVA because of Uddhav Thackeray. With Vishal Patil, it would have been a cakewalk for Congress as he had started his preparations way earlier. Except for Sangli, Maval, and Pune, it is looking difficult for BJP to make inroads at the moment,” said Deshpande.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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