Rahul’s visits, Pawar’s manoeuvres: How MVA is working to win Maharashtra’s sugar belt

This time around, Gandhi will be in Kolhapur on October 4 and 5 to attend various programmes that former minister and MLC Satej Patil has organised. On the first day, the LoP will unveil a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and interact with Congress’s Kolhapur MP Shahu Maharaj Chhatrapati who is a descendant of Shivaji. The following day, Gandhi will participate in a Constitution conference.

The six districts of western Maharashtra — Pune, Ahmadnagar, Solapur, Satara, Sangli, and Kolhapur — have 70 of the state’s 288 Assembly seats. In the 2019 polls, the region backed the Congress and the united NCP, giving the alliance 39 seats in total. While the NCP won 27 seats, the Congress secured 12. The alliance restricted the BJP to 20 seats while the united Shiv Sena won five, and others six.

In this region, sugar mills have always been the power centre and were traditionally controlled by Congress and NCP leaders till recently. However, some of these leaders have shifted their loyalty to the BJP and following the split in the NCP, there are questions about where the political power centre lies. For both the Congress and the NCP, regaining control of the politics will be a massive step towards regaining power. And the signs from the Lok Sabha polls are encouraging. While the ruling Mahayuti alliance won three parliamentary seats — Pune, Satara, and Hatkanangle — including Sangli the MVA grabbed seven (Kolhapur, Sangli, Madha, Shirdi, Ahmednagar, Shirur, and Solapur).

Not just the Congress, in recent weeks Pawar, MVA’s master strategist, has also been moving to shore up the alliance’s position in the region. He has been travelling across the region, holding meetings and connecting the missing dots so that the 2019 performance can be repeated. Though the split of his party was a massive setback, with several leaders, including those from western Maharashtra, leaving Pawar, the veteran leader is working to deploy fresh faces. According to NCP insiders, he has been working on seats in Pune, Ahmadnagar, Kolhapur, and Solapur.

Pawar has also been visiting old colleagues, figuring out new combinations and promoting fresh faces. A young leader called Amit Bhangre In Nagar’s Akole (Scheduled Tribe-reserved) seat, the late MLA R R Patil’s son Rohit in Sangli’s Tasgaon, and his grandnephew Yugendra Pawar from the home turf of Baramati are among the names Pawar is said to be considering, according to NCP (SP) insiders. Two weeks ago, Pawar travelled to Kolhapur where he announced Samarjeet Ghatge of the erstwhile royal family, the son of the late cooperative giant Vikramsinh Ghatge, as the party’s candidate from the Kagal Assembly seat. Ghatge, who joined the NCP(SP) last month from the BJP, is likely to take on NCP minister Hasan Mushrif.

Pawar is also continuing with his rapprochement strategy. Before the Lok Sabha results, Pawar buried his differences with former colleague Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil in Solapur district and ensured that his nephew Dhairyasheel won from the Madha Lok Sabha seat on his party ticket. In this spirit, last week, the NCP (SP) chief, Mohite-Patil, and senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde addressed a joint programme in Akluj, Solapur. The three, according to those aware of the developments, have settled all their differences and divided up the seats.

According to sources, after settling the talks with the Congress on Kolhapur, Pawar is now focusing on Satara, known as one of his strongholds but a seat that the party lost in the recent parliamentary polls. NCP (SP) insiders have attributed the loss to the similarity in poll symbols of its candidate and an Independent. “He (Sharad Pawar) is connecting people. He has already said that the present government will be changed and he is doing all he can to do the same,” said a senior NCP (SP) leader.