Maharashtra polls: Naik family has won Yavatmal's Pusad seat for 72 years

Indraneel Naik extends his family's 72-year political legacy in Maharashtra's Pusad, winning by a record margin in the latest assembly polls

MUMBAI: When Vasantrao Naik first contested from the Pusad assembly constituency in 1952, few could have foreseen the political legacy he was about to establish. That election, the first assembly polls after India’s independence, marked the beginning of an unbroken 72-year reign by the Naik family in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Significantly, the family also had two chief ministers—Vasantrao himself and his nephew Sudhakarrao Naik.

In the 2019 assembly polls, two members from the family of Maharashtra’s longest-serving chief minister Vasantrao Naik, contested from the Pusad seat (Arun Mondhe/ Hindustan Times (representative))

Pusad, one of the seven assembly constituencies in Yavatmal district, has been a stronghold of the Naik family for 16 consecutive elections. This remarkable record was recently extended by Indraneel Naik, a sixth-generation politician, who was re-elected in the latest assembly polls. He secured a landslide victory against NCP (SP) candidate Sharad Maind, winning by a margin of 90,769 votes—the highest ever recorded by any member of the Naik family in its decades-long political journey.

Indraneel Naik is the grandnephew of Vasantrao, Maharashtra’s longest-serving chief minister who held office for 11 years. Widely regarded as the architect of Maharashtra’s green revolution, Vasantrao laid the foundation of the family’s political dominance. Sudhakarrao Naik, on his part, was chief minister from 1991 but resigned in the aftermath of the 1992-93 Mumbai communal riots.

The Naik family’s unbroken winning streak can be attributed to its deep-rooted connection with the Banjara community, a Scheduled Tribe that constitutes a significant portion of Pusad’s electorate. This community’s support, combined with the family’s reputation for addressing local concerns, has kept its political legacy intact.

Pusad constituency has over 3.21 lakh voters, with the Banjaras often serving as the deciding factor. The Naik family’s ability to maintain this support base has been pivotal to its continued success.

While Vasantrao was a hardcore Congressman, Sudhakarrao and Manohar left the party to join the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 1999. Indraneel too shifted allegiance to Ajit Pawar when the latter split the NCP with the help of 40 MLAs. The Naik family is one of the most prominent political families of Maharashtra along with those led by other veteran politicians such as Sharad Pawar, Vasantdada Patil and Vilasrao Deshmukh.

As the Naik family steps into a new era of political challenges and shifting voter dynamics, its story serves as a remarkable example of resilience and relevance in Maharashtra’s democratic landscape. Indraneel Naik now bears the responsibility of upholding and evolving a legacy that spans generations.

Indraneel has already won a battle—albeit within the family—with regard to the upholding of the Naiks’ political legacy. Nilay Naik, son of Manohar Naik’s elder brother Madhukar Naik, contested the last assembly election as a BJP candidate. Before pitting him against Indraneel, the BJP got Nilay elected as a legislative council member in 2018 so that he could be a strong contender against him in the polls. In his debut election in 2019, Indraneel defeated Nilay by 9,701 votes.

Indraneel, who won his first election at the age of 37, said that the Naik family followed “Indian values in which the eldest member of the family takes the final decision”. “Vasantrao saheb decided that Sudhakarrao saheb will take over his political legacy, and this tradition has continued to date,” he said. “I was reluctant to enter politics, as my elder brother Yayati wanted to run for the assembly polls. But the elders from the constituency suggested my name to my father because Yayati has a stern sort of persona and had also lost the zilla parishad elections in 2019. I followed my father’s decision and contested the 2019 polls successfully.”

The situation repeated itself in these assembly elections when Yayati once again expressed his desire to contest. “But the family intervened and my father decided that I would continue from Pusad,” Indraneel told Hindustan Times. His elder brother then contested the polls from the Karanja assembly seat in Washim but failed to get success. Indraneel is the first family member who won the seats with a margin of over 90,000 votes.

Indraneel’s elder sister Reshma is married to a politician, Harvinder Kalyan, who is currently the speaker of the Haryana assembly.