As Ajit Pawar hints won’t contest assembly polls, NCP says not possible, he will contest from Baramati

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Ajit Pawar’s eldest son, Parth Pawar, was defeated by Shrirang Barne of the Shiv Sena by a margin of over two lakh votes in Maval constituency.

Ajit Pawar, Maharashtra Assembly elections, NCP, Baramati Assembly seat, Maharashtra NCP chief Sunil Tatkare, Maharashtra polls preparations, Jan Samman Yatra, 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Parth Pawar, Shiv Sena, Maval constituency, Sunetra Pawar, Supriya Sule, 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Indian express news

Ajit Pawar, who had been consistently winning from Baramati Assembly seat, won it with a record margin of 1,65,265 votes in the 2019 Assembly elections. (File Photo)

EVEN as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar on Thursday said that he was not interested in contesting the Assembly elections, his party, the NCP, has scoffed at any such possibility. In fact, NCP state chief Sunil Tatkare is confident Ajit Pawar will not desert Baramati and will contest the Assembly polls from the seat.

NCP sources said Ajit Pawar’s remark should be seen as a strategy to confuse his opponents ahead of the Assembly elections likely to be held in November. “It is part of a strategy to befuddle the opponents who are also planning to outdo him,” said an NCP leader.

“No one should draw a wrong meaning out of it (Pawar’s remark). In the upcoming Assembly elections, NCP will fight under the leadership of Ajit Pawar…he will be very much in the election fray. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about this. I will be speaking to him,” Tatkare had told reporters on Thursday.

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Speaking to The Indian Express on Friday, Tatkare said, “Yesterday, I wanted to speak to Ajit Pawar about his statement but could not do so as we are all busy with our ‘Jan Samman Yatra’…Today also we were busy throughout the day. I will try to speak to him later in the evening. But I am confident he will contest the Assembly elections. He is leading our party from the front.”

Asked if Ajit Pawar will contest from Baramati Assembly seat which he had been winning, Tatkare insisted that there “was no doubt” about it.

Tatkare also pointed out that Pawar’s statement that he was not keen on contesting the Assembly polls was in response to a question posed to him. “He did not announce that he would not be contesting. He was asked about the demand from party workers to field Jay Pawar (his son). After that, Ajit Pawar reacted,” Tatkare said, adding that the people of Baramati had full faith in their MLA. “Ajit Pawar has pushed the development of Baramati in the last three decades,” he said.

The NCP (SP) is likely to field Yugendra Pawar, grand-nephew of veteran leader Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar’s nephew, from Baramati. “That is why he (Ajit Pawar) said that he should not have brought politics into the family,” a leader from NCP (SP) said. On his part, Yugendra told The Indian Express on Thursday that whatever decision party chief Sharad Pawar takes, he will abide by it.

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Yugendra has been active in politics for the past few months and had campaigned for Sule against Sunetra. He has been gearing up to contest from Baramati Assembly seat.

During his Jan Samman Yatra in Pune on Thursday, Ajit Pawar said, “I have contested elections seven to eight times so far. I don’t have much interest in contesting elections again. If our party workers are demanding that Jay be fielded, then we will think about it. Our parliamentary board will take the decision in this regard.”

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Ajit Pawar’s eldest son, Parth Pawar, was defeated by Shrirang Barne of the Shiv Sena by a margin of over two lakh votes in Maval constituency. Ajit’s wife Sunetra Pawar lost to his cousin Supriya Sule by over 1.5 lakh votes in Baramati in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

While Jay Pawar campaigned for his brother in Maval in 2019, they together handled their mother’s election campaign in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency.

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Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Sanjay Raut said, ”We have heard Ajit Pawar is running away from Baramati. He says he does not want to contest the Assembly polls. It seems he has developed cold feet after his sister defeated his gameplan and his wife.”

Rohit Pawar, MLA from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, said, ”I think they must be planning a Baramati-type experiment against me too. Either Ajitdada or some top leader of their party might contest against me.”

Ajit Pawar, who had been consistently winning from Baramati Assembly seat, won it with a record margin of 1,65,265 votes in the 2019 Assembly elections. Ajit Pawar secured 1,95,641 votes while his nearest rival BJP candidate Gopichand Padalkar of the BJP managed just 30,376 votes.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

Ajay Jadhav

Ajay Jadhav is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, Pune. He writes on Infrastructure, Politics, Civic issues, Sustainable Development and related stuff. He is a trekker and a sports enthusiast. Ajay has written research articles on the Conservancy staff that created a nationwide impact in framing policy to improve the condition of workers handling waste. Ajay has been consistently writing on politics and infrastructure. He brought to light the lack of basic infrastructure of school and hospital in the hometown of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde even as two private helipads were developed by the leader who mostly commutes from Mumbai to Satara in helicopter. Ajay has been reporting on sustainable development initiatives that protects the environment while ensuring infrastructure development. ... Read More

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