After the NCP’s rout in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad civic elections, the only consolation for the party was its good show in the Zilla Parishad polls. Bagging 44 of 75 seats, the party managed to retain control of the body, as well as a majority of the Panchayat Samitis. Among the winners was Rohit Pawar, the grand-nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar. The 32-year-old Pawar is the third-generation leader from the Baramati family to enter politics. A highly educated man, Pawar has been managing both Baramati Agro and the private sugar mill in the region. He is also the vice-president of the Western India Sugar Mills Association, the apex body of private mills in Maharashtra. Watch What Else Is Making News: His entry into politics comes at a time when the NCP is facing one of the worst crises since its inception. The party failed to retain its hold over either the Pune Municipal Corporation or the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, as a powerful BJP went all out to capture these centres of power. In 2014, the NCP was voted out of power in the state and the Lok Sabha elections sharply slashed the number of MPs the party had. Supriya Sule, the daughter of Sharad Pawar, barely managed to win from Baramati. According to Pawar, the current decline in the NCP’s fortunes is due to the failure of the party to “sell itself” properly. “We believe in working and letting our work speak for itself. Unfortunately, we failed to tell our own story, and that’s the main reason behind the electoral debacle,” he said. As a party, NCP believed in cadre-based organisation, but it had failed to capitalise on the power of social media, said Pawar. “In some cases, we were not able to effectively defend ourselves on those platforms,” he said. Like his illustrious great-uncle, Pawar enter’s into politics was with quite a bang. He managed to garner the second-highest number of votes in Maharashtra in his maiden election. “During our election campaign, we walked for over 230 kms and ensured we reached at least 98 per cent of voters’ homes. The hard work paid off,” he said. Now, Pawar is hopeful about developing his ghat into a model ghat in the state. “I see my role as that of a coordinator between the people and the government,” he said.
