'Fight against Ajit Pawar now an ideological one'

After her cousin Ajit Pawar orchestrated a vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party, Supriya Sule and her father Sharad Pawar toiled to make their party, NCP(SP), poll-ready. Having tasted her first victory as party's working chief in the Lok Sabha polls this summer, winning eight of the 10 seats the NCP(SP) contested, the 55-year-old Baramati MP tells Shailesh Gaikwad and Faisal Malik that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will form the next government in Maharashtra. Edited excerpts of the interview:

- Shailesh Gaikwad and Faisal Malik

The poll campaign is picking up but the mood is different from what it was during the Lok Sabha polls. Back then the MVA had set the narrative, now the Mahayuti has. Is the MVA lagging?

Before the Lok Sabha polls, we were recovering from the split. No one thought we would win even half the seats we won. And yet we won 31 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra. I won by 1.50 lakh votes (in Baramati). During the Lok Sabha polls, they had written us off. The same people are now saying we will not win the assembly election. The truth is, things are certainly better now. It was the BJP who used the word 'narrative', we just placed facts before people. It was BJP MPs who said they wanted to change the Constitution, not us.

With Ladki Bahin scheme, the ruling alliance has succeeded in reaching out to people. Haven't they set the agenda for the elections?

They have nothing to show except the Ladki Bahin Yojana. And they woke up only after badly losing the Lok Sabha polls. If they had won more seats, they would not have remembered their sisters. The tenure of this government has been marked by large-scale unemployment, price rise and unbelievable corruption. Maharashtra has never seen this level of corruption before.

But MVA also announced populist schemes.

Everybody is resorting to populist measures. It's all over India, not just Maharashtra.

Have all parties accepted this 'poor governance but good politics' formula to win elections?