Madha: A prestige battle between Pawar, Fadnavis, but local leader holds key

The fight at Madha is a battle for prestige between two leaders who occupy pole positions in Maharashtra politics, Sharad Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis

faisal.malik@htlive.com

Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil

Solapur: The fight at Madha is a battle for prestige between two leaders who occupy pole positions in Maharashtra politics, Sharad Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis. But it’s a battle in which a third leader, local strongman Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, may yet again exert a decisive influence. While Madha’s politics may revolve around the equations between the three leaders, much of the life here revolves around farming and the impact of agriculture policies.

Pawar won here in 2009 promising to solve the constituency’s water scarcity problems but despite being union agriculture minister he didn’t deliver on it. In 2014, he therefore fielded Vijaysinh whose influence was so strong that Madha bucked the statewide pro-BJP trend that election.

Since then, Devendra Fadnavis led the BJP to make inroads in Madha. In 2019, Pawar didn’t agree to Vijaysinh’s request to field his son Ranjitsinh and Vijaysinh switched his support to the BJP, ensuring its candidate Ranjeetsinh Naik Nimbalkar’s victory. In that election, as per EC figures, Malshiras tehsil, home to Mohite-Patil’s family, alone provided Nimbalkar a lead of over 1.17 lakh votes while he trailed behind undivided NCP candidate Sanjay Shinde in three tehsils — Karmala (10,187 votes), Madha (43,045 votes) and Sangola (4,193 votes). In his hometurf Phaltan, Nimbalkar managed to get a lead of only 1,213 votes. He won the polls by a margin of 85,764 votes.

In 2024, however, Vijaysinh has thrown his weight behind his nephew Dhairyasheel Mohite-Patil contesting as Sharad Pawar’s candidate, daring the BJP. Mohite-Patil’s son Ranjitsinh continues to be a BJP MLC. The reason is that Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil feels Nimbalkar is trying to elbow him out. For instance, Nimbalkar decided to change the name of a water diversion scheme, Krishna-Bhima Starikaran, to Krishna flood diversion scheme to ensure that Mohite-Patil would not get credit for it. The World Bank recently gave in-principle approval to the ₹ 14,000 crore project. It was Mohite-Patil’s brainchild to bring surplus water from Sangli and Kolhapur to Ujani Dam to cater to the water requirements of Solapur district. The approval to the scheme was one of the conditions put forth by Mohite-Patil for joining the BJP, it is said.

An angry Vijaysinh demanded that his nephew, Dhairyasheel should be the party candidate this time but the BJP stuck to Nimbalkar. On April 14, Vijaysinh had a reunion meeting with his former boss, Sharad Pawar at his Akluj residence where senior Congress leader and former chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde was also present. The strategy to defeat the BJP in Madha was finalized at that meeting.

BJP’s Dhankar strategy

Like many other western Maharashtra constituencies, Madha is also dominated by the Maratha community as they form around 40% to 45% of the total population. Almost equal in number are Dhangars who form around 25% and OBCs. The rest are Muslims. And the BJP strategy hinges on the Dhangar vote.

“The BJP is looking to combine Dhangar and OBC community votes. It is very much aware that the Marathas are angry with them and will vote against its candidate. To offset the loss it is trying to bring Dhangar on their side,” said a Solapur-based senior journalist from a leading Marathi newspaper.

During his rally in Malshiras last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to wield the traditional Dhangar attire. He was also handed over the idol of Shri Balumama from Admapur in Kolhapur, a popular saint who has a large following among the community.

Pawar had wanted to field Mahadev Jankar, a prominent Dhangar leader, as his candidate from Madha but at the eleventh hour the latter chose to side with the Mahayuti alliance who fielded him in Parbhani. Jankar is now campaigning for Nimbalkar along with another Dhangar leader Gopichand Padalkar.

But, Uttamrao Jankar, another prominent Dhangar leader, who has a significant influence in the community in the district has sided with Pawar. He was in the BJP. In addition, other Dhangar leaders such as former Karmala MLA Narayan Patil and Aniket Deshmukh, grandson of stalwart Ganpatrao Deshmukh, are also in the opposition camp.

These leaders are trying to raise the issue of Dhangar reservation which was promised by the BJP in 2014. Dhangar consider themselves as Scheduled Tribes but get reservation as a Nomadic Tribe (NT) community. They have been demanding reservation under the ST category which will increase their quota to 7% from the existing 3.5%.

Ahead of the assembly elections in 2014, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, as the then Maharashtra BJP president, promised the community to provide reservation in the first cabinet meeting after coming to power. But that never panned out.

Meanwhile, Pawar has inducted Bhushansiha Raje Holkar, a descendent of Ahilyabai Holkar, queen from Holkar dynasty of Indore. He was made the star campaigner for the party in this election. Ahilyabai Holkar is revered by the Dhangar community in Maharashtra.

As far as Maratha votes are concerned, the BJP is confident of getting them since many of the alliance MLAs and Nimbalkar himself are Marathas. “I don’t feel that Nimbalkar will not get votes from the Maratha community as he has done good work especially to resolve the water crisis,” said NCP (AP) MLA Baban Sinde, who runs Asia’s biggest cooperative sugar factory — Vitthalrao Shinde Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana — in Madha. He played a big role in bringing the Nira-Deoghar projects that aim to bring in water to Madha.

There is a dispute between Baramati and Madha over the rights of using water from Nira-Deoghar dam. Baramati has been getting water for the last 23 years from the right canal bank.

Farmer concerns

Santosh Yelpale (43), a farmer who cultivates pomegranate on a five-acre farm in Ajanale village in Sangola, said Pawar was better as union agriculture minister for farmers. “The Modi government has imposed GST on all agriculture related products. For procuring fertilizer of ₹1 lakh we have to pay ₹ 18,000 as GST. From our hard-earned money, Modi is giving only ₹ 6,000 in the name of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi but keeps the rest ₹ 12,000,” he said and added that there is no guarantee that he will get an appropriate price for his produce.

Babasaheb Samant is a sarpanch of Wadechiwadi village in Madha tehsil. He voted for BJP in the last poll but has changed his mind. “The GST on agricultural products has badly impacted the farming community. We as farmers cannot do allied activities,” he said.

Madha falls across Solapur and Satara districts. Of the six assembly constituencies, two — Malshiras and Man — are with the BJP. Madha and Phaltan are with NCP (Ajit Pawar). Sangola is with Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and the remaining seat represented by independent Sanjay Shinde, who is also with the Ajit-led NCP.