Thanks to Pawar, BJP may retain Chimur

Pawar first announced that the alliance was `weak’ only in Chimur and though this apparently unguarded remark was later clarified as meaning that it was organisationally weak and not politically, it is having its fallout in Chimur.

Quiet understandably, the RPI felt cheated. It is even felt that it was not an off-the-cuff remark.

Being a master strategist, Sharad Pawar could be using the statement to ensure the defeat of Vilas Muttemwar of Nagpur and Naresh Pugalia ofChandrapur, who belong to the anti-Pawar faction and depend heavily on RPI support.

Political circles, and particularly a section of Congressmen were shocked over the statement which had figured in almost all the Congress and the RPI press meets in recent past in the area.

There was a lot of reading between the lines done and meanings, perhaps unintended, attributed. The BJP which wrested the seat from the Congress in 1996 elections, is trying to cash in on it.

In the last election, the BJP nominee, Diwte defeated his nearest rival, Vilas Muttemwar, who represented the constituency in parliament thrice, by a margin of over 1.12 lakh votes.

Diwte got 3,08,639 while Muttemwar received only 1,96,424 votes. The then RPI-JD alliance candidate, Dyandeo Parshuramkar, secured about 1.60 lakh votes.

The equation is different this year due to the alliance of RPI and the Congress. The Congress-RPI combination would certainly have an upper hand in view of the last election trend. The combination gathered 3.56lakh votes in 1996 polls while the BJP-Sena nominee, secured around 50,000 votes less than them. However, the apparently innocent remark of Sharad Pawar may shatter the chances of the alliance. It is an unique example of how a single, perhaps casual remark, can threaten to swing electoral fortune.