Masalwadi, the village in Baramati tehsil where Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had reportedly issued a threat, “vote for my sister or you won’t get water”, voted to give Sule’s opponent a lead. Of the total 633 votes polled from the village’s 120-odd households, 290 went to NCP’s Supriya Sule while 313 were in favour of Mahadev Jankar, the candidate fielded by the BJP-led alliance. Jankar, founder president of Rashtriya Samaj Paksh, is a part of the mega alliance. Baramati Assembly constituency has played a pivotal role in ensuring Sule’s victory with a whopping 90,628 lead over Jankar. In the bitter battle, the sitting MP had trailed in three other Assembly seats under Baramati LS constituency. On April 16, a day before the polling day, Ajit Pawar had reportedly visited several villages in the drought-hit areas of Baramati tehsil trying to ‘cajole’ the voters to vote for cousin Sule, in alleged violation of the model code of conduct. At one such meeting in Masalwadi village, Pawar had allegedly threatened the villagers to vote for Sule, failing which he would make sure the villagers didn’t get water. One of the villagers attending the meeting had caught this ‘threat’ on a cellphone camera and the video had gone viral on social media, following which a case was also registered against Pawar. The police, later, gave him a ‘clean chit’. The small village, about 30 km from Baramati town, which faces acute shortage of both drinking and irrigation water has a total of 1,050 votes, of which 633 were cast. Out of these, 290 went to Sule while 313 went to Jankar.“Despite such a serious threat, more than half villagers have voted against Sule. Though the villagers know that Pawars are quite capable of implementing their threat, the courage shown by the villagers have to be lauded. After the video went viral, there were efforts from NCP workers in the area to show that there was no discontent against Pawars in the village and that everyone in the village was pro-Sule. The result now clearly shows how Pawars had manufactured the silence of poor villagers,” said Dilip Khaire, a local BJP leader.
