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Battle for Baramati: Yugendra, Sule confident but predict close fight, NCP says cakewalk for Ajit

Since 1967, the Pawar family has never lost the Baramati seat, both in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

BaramatiNCP veteran Sharad Pawar has himself won Baramati Assembly and Lok Sabha seats a total of 14 times.

A day ahead of the counting of votes for the Maharashtra Assembly elections, NCP(SP)’s Yugendra Pawar, who is contesting against his uncle Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Friday said that he was confident of securing his maiden victory from the Baramati Assembly seat.

However, Yugendra added that the fight is likely go down to the wire.

“It is going to be a close fight. I think it will go down to the wire, something which has never happened in the past,” Yugendra told The Indian Express.

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Baramati MP and NCP(SP) leader Supriya Sule, too, said that it will be a “close fight”. “I think it will be close and tight fight.. In a close fight, anything can happen… It will go either way.” she said.

Since 1967, the Pawar family has never lost the Baramati seat, both in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. NCP veteran Sharad Pawar has himself won Baramati Assembly and Lok Sabha seats a total of 14 times.

While Ajit Pawar has won from the Baramati Assembly seat seven times and Baramati Lok Sabha seat once, Sule has been the Lok Sabha MP from Baramati four times. On the exit polls, Yugendra said: “Some of the exit poll results are showing my victory, some are showing the victory of my uncle. Anyways, I am confident of the victory.”

Yugendra, son of Sriniwas Pawar, elder brother of Ajit Pawar, said that several factors would contribute to his victory.

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“The first and foremost is Pawar saheb. People of Baramati have a special place for him in their hearts. During my campaigning, my emphasis was on Pawar saheb’s contribution to the development of Baramati. But after he gave up, the development of Baramati has slowed down. Jobs are few and far. No new industrial unit has come up in last several years and the water scarcity continues… I sought votes for protecting the ”swabhiman” (self-respect) of Pawar saheb,” he said.

Yugendra said that he had also highlighted his vision for pushing the development of Baramati during campaigning.

“I got the opportunity to visit each and every village… One of the promises that I have made to the youngsters of Baramati setting up of IT hub in Baramati like Pune’s Hinjewadi. This will ensure that youth from Bamarati do not have to go to other cities and states for jobs,” he said.

Sule said that during the Lok Sabha elections too — she had contested against Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar— they were thinking that it would be close fight.

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“But it turned out to be one-sided one. We hope same thing happens this time… Baramati voters had given me a lead of 48,000 despite the fact that the oppostion had gone all out to woo them,” she said.

On their part, the NCP leaders said they are confident of Ajit Pawar’s victory. “Our national president has won the seat seven consecutive times. He has also won the seat Baramati Lok Sabha seat once. He is admired across Maharashtra for his leadership qualities. He has worked relentlessly for the development of Baramati. If he is fielded anywhere in the state, he will still win. We have no doubt about his victory from Baramti,” said NCP spokesperson Sanjay Tatkare.

Tatkare dimissed the possibility of the Baramati election going down to the wire. “Ajit Pawar will win by a margin of over 50,000 votes…In 2019, he had won by a record margin of 1.67 lakh votes,” he said.

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


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