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Pune bypoll: Ravindra Dhangekar turns giant killer once again
It was Shiv Sena supremo late Balasaheb Thackeray’s fiery speeches that prompted Dhangekar to join the Shiv Sena
Around 26 years ago when Ravindra Dhangekar entered politics as a newbie, little did he imagine that he would get a chance to pull down the BJP stronghold of Kasba peth. Dhangekar’s victory on Thursday in the fiercely fought by-poll has catapulted him onto the national scene even as it was a relatively small election with 2.5 lakh registered voters, half of whom exercised their right to vote.
Seen as someone who would assist everyone in the constituency, Dhangekar preferred to be called either ‘Ravi’ or ‘Bhau”. If someone referred to him as ‘sahib’, Dhangekar – who hails from an agrarian family with roots in the Baramati tehsil of Pune district - would aggressively denounce the title.
When Dhangekar, an OBC leader, joined politics, he was hand-held by then senior Shiv Sena leader Deepak Paigude. It was Shiv Sena supremo late Balasaheb Thackeray’s fiery speeches that prompted Dhangekar to join the Shiv Sena.
Dhangekar first contested civic polls in 1997 and won. Thereafter, he served as a corporator five times till 2022. He was quick to sense the shifting moods of Maharashtra’s political landscape so when Raj Thackeray separated from the Shiv Sena and founded the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in 2006, Dhangekar, along with his senior Paigude, switched sides and joined the Thackeray cousin.
As MNS candidate, Dhangekar contested the assembly polls in 2009 and gave a tough fight to Girish Bapat, an established BJP leader. Dhangekar, through his strong connect with voters, gave Bapat a run for his money even as the latter won by a small margin of 7,000 votes.
In 2014, Dhangekar once again contested the assembly polls against Bapat although the Modi wave resulted in his defeat. As the MNS lost its charisma, Dhangekar sensed the mood and quit the party in 2017. While there were whispers he would join the BJP, some leaders within the BJP opposed his entry and contested the civic polls. In that election, Dhangekar defeated senior BJP leader Ganesh Bidkar, and Congress supported him even though he contested as an independent candidate.
Later, Dhangekar joined the Congress and was aspiring to once again fight the assembly polls in 2019. However, the party chose Arvind Shinde over him, making the election easier for BJP’s Mukta Tilak. After Tilak’s demise in November 2022, Dhangekar was the Congress’s unanimous choice. He too did not let the party down and turned a giant killer by defeating BJP’s Hemant Rasane. He managed to pull down the BJP bastion of Kasba peth; a task many leaders in the past could not accomplish.
By fielding Ravindra Dhangekar, Congress tried to win the perception game. Dhangekar, a leader with strong connect, and someone seen to be just a call away when people from the constituency are in need, took the lead in the campaign. It prompted senior BJP leaders to tighten the party’s poll machinery as deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis went on asking party office-bearers to work on the ground.
Dhangekar in his campaign highlighted issues that plague the Kasba peth constituency and projected himself as a ‘commoner’. So when BJP’s Chandrakant Patil asked “Who is Dhangekar?” after the Congress nominated him, Dhangekar, rather ironically, said, “I will show him who I am in the election.”
“This is a win for the common man who stood against the money and muscle power of the BJP. The people however rejected it,” Dhangekar said after his victory.
Backed by a strong team of supporters, Dhangekar reached out to voters personally. At the same time, the sympathy towards the MVA over the Election Commission’s recent order handing over the Shiv Sena party symbol ‘bow and arrow’ and name to the Shinde camp helped Dhangekar.
When the campaign reached its last leg, the tables were seen turned as chief minister Eknath Shinde with Fadnavis and others spent five days in a row in Pune, holding meetings and participating in roadshows. It helped the BJP-Shinde alliance to counter the earlier perception that the saffron camp was losing Kasba. However, the BJP could not win the battle.
