E-Paper
In Kothrud, ‘outsider’ versus united insiders
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named the party’s Maharashtra unit chief Chandrakant Patil as its candidate from Kothrud in Pune in its first list, it raised
When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named the party’s Maharashtra unit chief Chandrakant Patil as its candidate from Kothrud in Pune in its first list, it raised eyebrows among voters and BJP workers. For Patil, however, the bigger worry was to establish connect with a constituency for which he was an “outsider”.
A fortnight later, he has rented a house in the locality, constituted a dedicated team of workers and released a local manifesto for Kothrud to show his association with the Brahmin-dominated segment, known to be a stronghold for the BJP. Patil’s competitor is Maharashtra Navnirman Sena nominee Kishor Shinde, a local leader, who is being supported by the Congress and NCP.
For Patil, the fight put up by a united opposition has made things difficult. Patil was previously a Member of Legislative Council, elected from the teachers’ constituency. “Wherever I have gone, I have established connect with people – be it Kolhapur or Kothrud. I am confident that people of Kothrud will accept me and I won’t let them down,” said Patil. Through his ‘sankalpanama’, Patil, 59-year-old son of a Mumbai mill worker, highlighted issues plaguing Kothrud and has promised to solve them. In his speeches, Patil underlines the fact that his candidature was his party high command’s choice.
BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a key meeting in Delhi last month asked party leaders to contest the polls rather than choose the backdoor entry through legislative council. It was then decided that Patil will contest from Kothrud, where local leader Medha Kulkarni had established a good connect.
The strong RSS network has for years helped the BJP and Sena get their candidates elected from this constituency. In 2014, Kulkarni won the seat defeating Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Mokate by a margin of 45,000 votes, while in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Girish Bapat got a lead of 1.5 lakh votes from Kothrud.
Shinde has turned it into an insider versus outsider battle, saying it is a neta versus a karyakarta. A former Shiv Sena man, who later joined the MNS, Shinde ensured he didn’t criticise the BJP or its right-wing roots. “People here want someone to raise their issues and work on them. They want someone among them to be represented in the state Assembly,” said Shinde, two-time corporator from MNS.
