Maharashtra: In sugar belt of Ahmednagar, party loyalty loses out to local cooperative politics

“Political parties and ideologies don’t matter much here. It is the regional cooperative politics that counts,” said political analyst Tarachand Mhaske.

BJP’s Kopargaon MLA Snehlata Kolhe with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Housing Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil on Friday. (Express photo by Deepak Joshi)

If party-hopping has been the flavour of this election season in Maharashtra, the sugar belt of Ahmednagar, also the largest district in the state, is at the centre of it.

Just ahead of Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, Sujay, son of then Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, rocked the Opposition’s boat by joining the BJP and subsequently winning the Ahmednagar South seat as its candidate.

EXPLAINED

Changes set to change little

In Ahmednagar, the influence of local heavyweights in the cooperative sector of the region and their personal ties with the local farmers determine their political influence. Hence, changing parties and ideologies between one election and the other is likely to have little impact on their poll prospects.

In June, Vikhe-Patil followed in his son’s footsteps. The BJP gave him a Cabinet Minister rank in the Devendra Fadnavis government, notwithstanding the allegations of corruption he had levelled against it months ago.

Story continues below this ad

While the defections rattled the Opposition camp, it was in line with the ‘Aaya Ram Gaya Ram’ culture Ahmednagar is famous for.

A land of powerful and interconnected political families and cooperative barons, Ahmednagar has often witnessed strange political alliances and defections. “Political parties and ideologies don’t matter much here. It is the regional cooperative politics that counts,” said political analyst Tarachand Mhaske.

Consider this. Bhausaheb Kamble, who was the Congress’s candidate from Shirdi Lok Sabha seat against Shiv Sena just five months ago, is now Sena’s candidate from Shrirampur Assembly seat in the region. Similarly, Vikhe-Patil’s brother-in-law Rajesh Parjane, another local heavyweight, is in the fray against BJP’s sitting MLA Snehlata Kolhe in Kopargaon, which borders Vikhe-Patil’s constituency Shirdi.

The Kolhes, too, are a powerful political family which has been associated with the Congress and NCP in the past. Rivals of the Vikhe-Patils in local politics, they joined the BJP ahead of the state polls in 2014. Snehlata’s principal rival, NCP’s Ashutosh Kale, is a third generation politician from Congress veteran Shankarrao Kale’s family, members of which have contested the previous three Assembly polls against the Kolhes on a Sena ticket.

Story continues below this ad

On Friday, Vikhe-Patil shared the dais with Snehlata in an election rally where Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was present, but there was no warmth between the two sides. While Vikhe-Patil extended support to Snehlata, both he and the Chief Minister avoided speaking about Parjane’s rebellion.

Meanwhile, the presence of another BJP rebel, Vijay Wahadne, has made the contest intriguing. Even the Kales are local sugar barons, and have been contesting Assembly polls against Kolhes since the 1980s, with both sides switching parties on more than one occasion.

On Friday, Vikhe-Patil recounted how he “criticised the Fadnavis government as the Opposition leader” before justifying that he joined the government “for larger public interest”. Vikhe-Patil’s father, veteran Congressman Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil, too, had defected from the Congress on three occasions, before returning back to the party fold. In neighbouring Akole, NCP defector Vaibhav Pichad, who won in the 2014 polls, is now the BJP’s nominee.

In 2014, the BJP won five out of the 12 seats in this once Congress bastion, with the Congress and NCP winning three each, and Sena one. While the BJP-Sena alliance aims to win all 12 seats this time, sources said this seems an uphill task.