Ajit Pawar sees big win for NCP chief in Baramati

PUNE, AUGUST 30: Nationalist Congress Party candidate for the Baramati Assembly constituency Ajit Pawar on Sunday maintained that party leader Sharad Pawar would lead with a substantial margin of votes in all the six talukas of the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency and that the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP candidate Pratibha Lokhande would fare second in the contest.

Ajit, who is campaigning in the entire district, while speaking to mediapersons in Pimpri, claimed that he himself would win comfortably from his Assembly constituency, although the Congress and the BJP-Shiv Sena have decided to support independent candidate Chandrarao Tawre. He said his was the only constituency in the state where there was no candidate of the BJP, the Shiv Sena or the Congress contesting the election. Without naming Tawre, Pawar said that any independent candidate needed to have a team of party workers who could tell the voters about the poll symbol to win the election.

Making projections about the support for Sharad Pawar from the six talukas, he said that while Pawar would lead with substantial margins, the lead margins in Purandar, Baramati and Daund would be more than two lakhs. Congress candidate Ramkrishna More would be at second place only in two talukas that of Purandar and Shirur.

In reply to a query, he maintained that there was no question of the NCP joining hands with any other party for the formation of the government in the state as NCP and its allies would get a clear majority. When asked whether he was in the race for the post of the chief minister, he categorically said no.