Pawars Being Tested In Their Stronghold

Sitting MP Supriya Sule is seeking the mandate from the constituency for the third time

- Shoumojit Banerjee

The bastion of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar is under siege. The BJP top brass has pulled out all the stops to wrest the Baramati Lok Sabha seat, the stronghold of the Pawars since the NCP’s formation in 1999. The constituency is going to the polls on Tuesday.

The BJP has launched a major blitz to topple Supriya Sule, Mr. Pawar’s daughter who is seeking the mandate from Baramati for the third time. The constituency is at the centre of Mr. Pawar’s stronghold stretching across Maharashtra’s “sugar belt”.

In the struggle for supremacy in western Maharashtra, the fall of Baramati to the BJP could signal the political twilight of the Pawars, besides dealing a massive blow to the NCP in the State.

The BJP-Sena Mahayuti has fielded Kanchan Kul, wife of Rahul Kul, Daund MLA and member of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha. Dhangar leader Mahadev Jankar, who heads the Paksha, lost to Ms. Sule by fewer than 70,000 votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Evenly matched