Pawar pocketborough

In the final days of a dry monsoon last year, farmers in Baramati were woken from slumber by a midnight shower. The artificial rain, pouring...

In the final days of a dry monsoon last year, farmers in Baramati were woken from slumber by a midnight shower. The artificial rain, pouring after cloud-seeding in the skies sponsored by the Maharashtra government, had roused Jalochi village out of homes .

But the season has changed. Now, when Nationalist Congress Party NCP cadres visit homes campaigning for Maharashtra8217;s best known and safest Lok Sabha fiefdom of Baramati, farmers don8217;t want to talk politics. Their diaries that noted details of a midnight shower are locked in trunks, forgotten.

But this is Baramati. Anywhere else in Maharashtra, the politics of drought would pave a bumpy road to Parliament. Here, NCP chief Sharad Pawar will surface only for one public meeting. 8216;8216;There8217;s no need to campaign,8217;8217; says NCP Baramati chief Subhash Dhole breezily. 8216;8216;Saheb will address only one meeting.8217;8217; This is safe territory, safer than Amethi where the Gandhi clan hits the campaign circuit regularly.

Party faithful take it easy, counting a three-lakh victory margin for boss. The two-room party office is lazily empty of cadres and poll paraphernalia when The Indian Express visits at 4 pm, a day after the clock was restored to NCP. No rallies here, the cadres think it8217;s plenty to trudge house to house instead.

8216;8216;Drought has disturbed public mood,8217;8217; says Dhole. 8216;8216;But they will still send Saheb to Parliament.8217;8217; A win by three lakh would be close to Pawar8217;s victory margin in 1999. So Saheb is away, campaigning for his flock of candidates. In Baramati heading one meeting for exactly one hour on the last day of campaigning will do. The BJP has poached a disgruntled sugar baron Prithviraj Jachak, from Pawar8217;s clique of sugar daddies, as a potential rival who8217;s upset with heir Ajitdada8217;s 8216;8216;bossy8217;8217; ways. Yet the saffron combine has no great expectations. 8216;8216;If we can8217;t defeat Pawar,8217;8217; says BJP8217;s general secretary Vinod Tawde, 8216;8216;We8217;ll at least give him a good fight.8217;8217;

nbsp;	BALANCE SHEET

		nbsp;	FOR PAWAR 8226; Pawardom includes sugar, milk, grape clique, education, industries, and a presence in local to district bodies 8226; 120-acre biotech, IT and education campus are showpiece of transformation from wasteland to global hub 8226; Loyalty of the masses 8226; NCP faithful dairy lobby handles drought management AGAINST PAWAR 8226; To delight of opposition, political heir and nephew Ajitdada Pawar is relatively unpopular 8226; In backyard of IT and Biotech campus are barren, wasted fields 8226; Arrival of majors like Dynamix Dairy bring jobs for the educated. Traditional agri community watches, sulking	nbsp;

But discontent among young voters is seething. 8216;8216;Saheb has made big improvements only for outsiders, not his own people,8217;8217; mumbles Bharat Chavan, a farmer at a cattle camp at Baramati.

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His elders shut him up. The cattle camps are managed by the milk federation of NCP loyalists who hover nearby. 8216;8216;Don8217;t listen to these young men,8217;8217; say elders at the camp. 8216;8216;We would be nowhere if it wasn8217;t for Saheb.8217;8217;

Minutes away from the wasted fields, is the Baramati that Pawar chooses to showcase to the world, inviting guests from Asia to USA. In February, industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Rahul Bajaj inaugurated an imposing school of biotechnology here. With the best of equipment and infrastructure, it8217;s alma mater to 20,000 students of the region.

Farmer Narayan Malgunde asks: 8220;What use is half an hour of artificial rain?8217;8221;. He8217;s sold two buffaloes for a loss of Rs 10,000 each. But nobody8217;s complaining against Baramati8217;s baron. 8216;8216;We may go through the worst crises, but we won8217;t go against Saheb,8217;8217; says Malgunde.

Loyalty in Pawardom will keep the clock ticking. That he may miss his shot at PM is fodder for gossip. 8216;8216;Even if Sonia is in line for PM,8217;8217; asks farmer Baban Jarat, 8216;8216;don8217;t we know Saheb will hold the real power?8217;8217;