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Ajit Pawar hints at wife Sunetra contesting against cousin Supriya at Baramati
Ajit Pawar’s speech fuelled speculation that the party will field his wife Sunetra against his cousin, the incumbent Baramati MP, Supriya Sule.
The 2024 contest for Baramati will be one of the most keenly watched battles. On Friday, without naming names, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Ajit Pawar made an emotional appeal to his constituents to elect a “first timer” who is though surrounded by “experienced people.”
Ajit Pawar’s speech fuelled speculation that the party will field his wife Sunetra against his cousin, the incumbent Baramati MP, Supriya Sule. The deputy chief minister himself is the sitting MLA from Baramati. The local NCP unit also used the occasion to launch a chariot that will run through the constituency talking up the social initiatives taken up by Sunetra Pawar.
While speaking to his party workers, a day after Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar upheld the Ajit faction as real NCP, Ajit Pawar told party workers in Baramati that he would field a candidate who has not contested an election earlier, but that person would have the support of those with ample experience. People, he added, should vote for his candidate as if he himself were in the fray.
“As party workers, you should tell voters without hesitation that the elected MP from here will work more for the development as compared to the one you have been electing for the last three to four terms. Tell the voters that this is a promise to them from Ajit Pawar that even if our candidate is a first timer, they are surrounded by people with ample experience of winning polls.” Although she has stayed away from active politics so far, Sunetra Pawar, 60, hailed from a political family before marrying into another one. Her brother Padamsinh Patil is a former minister while her nephew Rana Jagjitsinha Padamsinh Patil is a BJP from Osmanabad. The Pawar couple’s elder son, Parth, had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Maval.
The Pawar clan may have had a serious political cleave in the last one year, their personal relations have remained close. The 2024 contest, likely to be bitterly fought, may change that dynamic. On Friday, without using his uncle’s name, Ajit Pawar said he could easily have been the original NCP’s leader had he been the son of the “senior” leader instead of the nephew.
“Had I been born to the senior (leader), I would have become party president naturally, in fact, the party would have come under my control. (But) I too was born to your brother,” he said. The entire Pawar clan was against him, he claimed, but not the party workers.
In the same speech he also took pot-shots at his cousin Supriya, again, without naming her. “Since you never became a minister, how would any corruption allegations be ever made against you?... I, on the other hand, had the state’s responsibility. Those who work, are bound to face allegations. Those who do not work, are bound to remain clean,” he said alluding to allegations of corruption against him. Supriya Pawar has never held a ministerial position either in the state or at the centre.
Pawar further said that while he may have been accused of “stealing” the party founded by Sharad Pawar, the Election Commission of India and the Maharashtra assembly Speaker had both ruled in his favour, proclaiming him as the true face of the NCP.
