Pawar8217;s citadel under siege

Leading the influx into the Sena in the run-up to the elections was one of the stalwarts of the cooperative sector, Vikramsinh Ghatge, a Congressman of long standing. Ghatge, who heads one of the leading cooperative sugar factories in the region and was a Congress legislator, has been given the Sena ticket from the Kolhapur constituency.

In the neighbouring Ichalkaranji constituency, the Senahas nominated another defector, Nivedita Mane, whose father in law, the late Balasaheb Mane, had represented the constituency for five consecutive terms as a Congressman.

Along with Ghatge and Nivedita, more than half a dozen veterans in the cooperative sector joined the Shiv Sena. Some of them being Arun Narke, who controls the Rs 500 crore Kolhapur District Milk Cooperative Federation distributors for Gokul Milk, former national wrestling champion Maruti Mane, who is also the Director of the Sangli District Cooperative Bank and Shyamrao Patil Yeraokar, chairman of a cooperative sugar unit.

All of them left the Congress with a common grudge: 8220;Now the party has nothing to offer for us,8221; remarked Maurti Mane. Mane pointed out that intra-party squabbles and rampant groupism had completedly destroyed the century-old party.

In fact, the Congress received the first setback in its citadel when its nominee for the Legislative Council was defeated by an independent. Though Congress had surplus votes, Independent candidate Mahadev Mahadik won the elections and had secured 90 surplus votes prompting Bal Thackeray and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi to proclaim that the alliance would now play a vital role in the sugar politics of the state.

However, according to a senior Congress MP, his colleagues, particularly those controlling cooperative institutions, are joining the Shiv Sena out of fear.