A weakened party organization due to the split, division in the lower rank leaders and divided family has impacted parties of both Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar so much that both sides are struggling to find winnable and strong candidates on seats where they are likely to contest.
Barring two to three seats, elsewhere both sides are either importing candidates or changing seats to find a strong candidate.
As per the seat-sharing talks in the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party is to get 7-8 Lok Sabha seats while Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP) is to get around 9-10 seats.
While both sides have announced their candidates on a few of the seats, prolonged negotiations on either side are failing to bring winnable candidates to both.
The NCP (SP) has managed to declare candidates on five seats: Baramati (Supriya Sule), Shirur (Amol Kolhe), Wardha (Amar Kale), Dindori (Bhskar Bhagre) and Ahmadnagar south (Nilesh Lanke).
Out of these, Sule and Kolhe are sitting MPs. In Wardha, the party had to import the candidate from Congress while Lanke was with Ajit Pawar led NCP.
Bhagre, is a new face with an experience of zilla parishad election only. The party is still in search of candidates for Madha, Satara, Raver, Bhiwandi and Beed.
In Madha, the internal rebellion within the BJP was doused by the party ending the possibility of the influential Mohite-Patil family joining Sharad Pawar.
In Raver, the party was unable to find a candidate after MLC Eknath Khadse’s daughter-in-law was again given the ticket by the BJP.
In Beed, both probable candidates namely Bajrang Sonawane and Jyoti Mete have come from other parties. In Bhiwandi, the party wants the ticket for Suresh Mhatre who has come to the NCP (SP) after jumping several other parties.
In Satara – one of the most powerful seats for the NCP – the party is unable to find a candidate with pan-constituency appeal, forcing it to give a proposal to Congress’ Prithviraj Chavan to contest.
“The split definitely created confusion in the minds of workers for sometime. But those who truly trusted the ideology and had supported Pawar saheb since 1999 are still with us. We don’t see any problem in pitching the candidates,” said Mahesh Tapase, chief spokesperson of NCP (SP).
Tapase said that the so-called delay is not because of weakening of the party, but due to careful scrutiny by the party chief.
“We want to find candidates who would give the maximum confidence to our voters. The cadre, ideology and organization stand strongly with us,” he said.
Sources within both sides accept that one of the major reasons for the weakening of the organization is a split within the top family, unlike the Shiv Sena.
“In the Sena, Shinde was not a part of the Thackeray family. Here, Ajit Pawar is a family member and was a top decision maker. The resources are split, the organization is split and eventually the loyalties of many have changed. It is bound to have an impact on both sides,” said another leader from the NCP (SP).
According to a leader from the NCP, the silence of both sides during seat negotiations at respective fronts is a testament to the damage this split has caused to the organization.
“Be it saheb (Sharad Pawar) or Ajit Pawar, reality must be faced. The strategy should be to focus on whatever we are getting and win as much as possible from it and prepare for the future challenge,” the leader from NCP said. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP has announced candidates on Baramati, Raigad and Shirur Lok Sabha seats which the united NCP had won in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Out of these three, Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar will contest in Baramati while NCP state president and sitting MP Sunil Tatkare will be the candidate from Raigad. With sitting MP Amol Kolhe choosing to side with Sharad Pawar, the party had to import Shiv Sena leader and former MP Shivajirao Adhalrao-Patil for Shirur.
Despite its demand, the party had to give away Dindori (ST) and Gadchiroli (ST) seats to the BJP. In a bid to win Dhangar votes in the Baramati seat, the party has given up on the Parbhani LS seat for Mahadev Jankar of Rashtriya Samaj Party (RSP).
In Dharashiv, BJP MLA Rana Jagjitsinh Patil’s wife is likely to join NCP to contest the seat. The party seems to have given up on the Satara LS seat for the BJP and instead may get Nasik, where it plans to field state minister Chhagan Bhujbal.
“Ultimately all three parties are answerable to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah as we plan to win maximum seats from Maharashtra. There is no merit in the argument that we are suffering after the split in the party because we are working to win seats for the alliance… And when a victory is important, there is nothing wrong in importing a candidate from another side,” said Umesh Patil, chief spokesperson of NCP.
Tags: Pawar Pawar divided party family sides struggle find winnable strong candidates Mumbai News
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