What lies ahead for MVA? An LS bypoll holds some clues

Last week, soon after indications that the Pune district collectorate was preparing to hold the bypoll, NCP Ajit Pawar was the first to lay claim to the seat on behalf of the MVA. This provoked a reaction from the Congress, which believes the seat is a must to ensure it retains a presence in Pune politics. The Congress’s sole Lok Sabha MP from Maharashtra, incidentally, died earlier this week.

The third MVA partner, the Shiv Sena (UBT), appears to be leaning towards the NCP, which is seen as stronger in Pune.

As Congress leaders point out, their connection to the Pune Lok Sabha goes way back, to before the NCP was even formed. After Sharad Pawar split from the Congress, formed the NCP and, soon after, joined hands with the Congress, the Pune Lok Sabha seat in the district stayed in the Congress kitty as part of pre-poll arrangements. The NCP got all the other three constituencies in the district.

Ajit Pawar’s statement hence came as a rude shock to the Congress. Without laying a direct claim, he first gave enough hints arguing that the MVA nod should go to the party that had put up the strongest performance in the most recent civic and Assembly polls in the area. “Both in terms of corporators and MLAs, the NCP is in a better position. Ask the newly elected Congress MLA Ravindra Dhangekar (from Kasba Peth in Pune in a bypoll), he too will credit the NCP for helping him win,” he said in Pune.

Next day, in Patan, Ajit was more direct. “The Congress has been losing in the Pune Lok Sabha seat for a long time. If our partner is consistently losing the seat, then it should be given to another party that is better placed… We feel we should contest the seat,” Ajit said, adding that nothing was finalised yet. “We will discuss the issue and make a decision.”

This drew a sharp response from both the Pune and state units of the Congress. The party said that it would not give up the seat and the NCP leader needed to get his facts right.

“The Pune Lok Sabha seat has been Congress stronghold. Except for 2014 and 2109, we have always won the seat, and with good margins,” Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe told The Indian Express.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole also said that “on merit”, the Congress should get the seat. “We should not compare civic, zilla parishad and Assembly elections with parliamentary elections. These are all different. The Congress has contested the Pune Lok Sabha seat in the past and won. We lost in 2014 and 2019 (during the BJP Lok Sabha poll sweeps), but the atmosphere then was different. It has changed now, especially after the Congress victory in the Kasba Peth bypoll,” he said.

A non-presence in Pune is also unacceptable to the Congress as many of its luminaries – back to pre-Independence — belong to the district. Said Londhe: “Of four seats in Pune district, the Congress fights only one. If even that seat is snatched away, we will have no presence in the district. We are a national party with a pan-India presence. We cannot allow this.”

Ramesh Iyer, the general secretary of the Pune Congress, said: “Ajit Pawar said that after Vithalrao Gadgil won the Pune Lok Sabha seat in 1989, the Congress has not won it… Vithalrao Gadgil won in 1980, 1984 and 1989, (Suresh) Kalmadi won in 1996, 2004 and 2009, Vitthal Tupe of the Congress in 1998. So, after Gadgil, the Congress has won the seat four times,” he said.

Iyer added that not just the Kasba Peth bypoll win but also the Karnataka results and Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra had turned things around for the Congress in Pune.

The NCP cites its own numbers to weigh down the Congress’s. An NCP leader said that in the 2017 civic elections to the Pune Municipal Corporation, the NCP won 44 seats, to the Congress’s 10. Then, in the 2019 Assembly elections, while the NCP won a seat in Pune, the Congress could get none. Also, the leader said, another of its candidates won from the Hadapsar seat, which is part of Pune city but falls under the Shirur Lok Sabha seat.

The NCP contends that while the Congress might have been a force once in Pune, especially under Kalmadi, that is no longer the case. Senior NCP leader Ankush Kakade questioned the party’s choices in 2014 and 2019 elections for the Pune Lok Sabha seat. “In 2014, the Congress roped in Vishwajeet Kadam, who had never been active in Pune politics. In 2019, it fielded Mohan Joshi, who everyone knew would lose badly.”

Kakade added that the NCP already had a good candidate for the seat, in city president Prashant Jagtap. “We are poll-ready. The Congress will have to first search for a candidate.”

In an indication that things could turn even more bitter, some Congress leaders said that if electoral merit alone was the criteria for allotting a seat, the party could also lay claim to the Baramati Lok Sabha seat, a Sharad Pawar bastion, now held by his daughter Supriya Sule.

“The NCP has two MLAs in the Baramati Lok Sabha seat. Similarly, the Congress too has two MLAs. We can also stake claim to the seat, but we won’t. We will follow the coalition dharma,” Iyer said.

The Shiv Sena (UBT), which until last year fancied its chances in the Pune seat till defections rattled its boat, has advised its alliance partners to exercise “restraint” and be ready for “sacrifice”, to “save Constitution and democracy”.

“All the three MVA partners were firmly united in the Kasba Peth Assembly bypoll. As a result, the MVA won the seat. If we come together in a similar fashion, we will win the Pune Lok Sabha seat as well,” Sanjay Raut, its chief spokesperson, said.

But, its advice of restraint and caution notwithstanding, the Shiv Sena (UBT) was the first to pitch a stone and ripple the 2024 waters by suggesting that it expected to contest 22 Lok Sabha seats in the state next year – the same number as it had fought in 2019, then as the united Shiv Sena in alliance with the BJP. It had won 18 of the 22.