Outsider’ gets Sena ticket in Chinchwad,protests die

A three-time Congress corporator from Thergaon area,Barne will contest the Chinchwad assembly constituency on a Shiv Sena ticket.

Once considered a powerful Congress leader of the region,Barne was in fact supposed to join the Shiv Sena before the recent Lok Sabha polls.

He was reportedly promised a ticket by Sena to contest from Maval seat. However,the Sainiks were in no mood to let an “outsider” get the ticket. They went on a mass protest and sent thousands of SMSes to Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray. The ticket went to Shiv Sena leader Gajanan Babar. But the politician in Barne did not lose his cool. Despite being in Congress,he worked for the Sena candidate Babar,who ultimately eceived 21,000 votes more than his rival in Chinchwad segment. “NCP leaders had sought my support. But I told them pointblank that I will not support their candidate since I was keen on joining the Sena,” said Barne.

Barne has now been rewarded with the ticket and there is no protest from the Sainiks whatsoever. Unfortunately for Barne just as he stepped into the Sena,there has been an upheavel in the party. The party is divided into two camps — one led by MP Gajanan Babar and the other by MP Shivajirao Adhalrao-Patil. But Barne contends that the party is united and strongly behind him. “As far as I am concerned I share good equation with both the MPs. They are behind and so is the entire party,” he says.

Barne is swearing revenge on the Nationalist Congress Party. “When I was in the Congress I led several agitations against the misrule of the NCP in Pimpri-Chinchwad. I will now carry forward my unfinished task to a logical conclusion,” he says. A former president of local Congress unit,Barne says he also has old scores to settle with the Congress. “I was not treated properly by the party. A lot of injustice was done to me. I struggled hard to bring the party into public limelight,but the party did not care for me. Now the Sena has given me a chance to prove what I am.”

The Congress itself is in tatters in Pimpri-Chinchwad. It had expelled several of its corporators for anti-party activities,only to take them back. The party is rarely heard of,most of its leaders remain under fire for hobnobbing with NCP.

Barne says he is not worried about who the opponent would be. “I don’t care about my rivals. Whether it is MLC Laxman Jagtap or anybody else. My victory is sure. I have nurtured the area for long. In the last two months,I have met several people who have extended their unflinching support to me,” he says,adding that the development will be the focus of his campaigning. Barne says he is not relying on his friends and relatives who are present in big numbers.

“My people are my voters. There are around four lakh voters in the constituency. If there is 55 per cent voting,I am sure I will get around 1.25 lakh votes. That is my calculation derived after a deep homework of the constituency,” he says,confidently.

Barne is also likely to get covert support from NCP. That is because its Pimpri-Chinchwad NCP president Azam Pansare who lost the Maval seat had blamed certain party leaders from his defeats,one of them being MLC Laxman Jagtap who is very much likely to be fielded from Chinchwad constituecny. The Pansare camp will go all-out against Jagtap,NCP sources said.