In Baramati, BJP firmly behind Kanchan Kul to beat Supriya Sule in NCP stronghold

In the 2014 elections, Mahadev Jankar, leader of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), gave Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule a major scare; while Sule won eventually by a margin of close to 70,000 votes, it was a huge fall, given that her father, who represented the seat since 1984, had always won by a margin of 3 to 4 lakh votes.

BJP leaders and Jankar later concluded that he would have benefitted had he contested on a BJP ticket because of the Modi wave.

The saffron party, to correct last time’s mistake, has given its ticket to Kanchan Kul, wife of RSP MLA from Daund, Rahul Kul. The party, for almost 20 days now, has deployed its workers in Baramati to ensure that Sule is defeated.


Every day, at least two BJP cabinet ministers are addressing rallies in Baramati. Chandrakant Patil, the BJP minister who has been entrusted with the task of dethroning Sule, has been camping in Baramati for the past 12 days. Patil even admitted during a public speech that Modi had told BJP leaders that “bitiya (Sule) ko girana hain”.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis too has held four rallies in Baramati, and on Sunday, BJP president Amit Shah addressed a rally in Baramati. The BJP has even pushed its partner, Shiv Sena, to campaign against Sule.

BJP leaders have hammered home one point at their rallies: how Pawar is playing ‘dynastic politics’ and promoting his daughter and family. This, however, doesn’t seem to have gone down too well in Baramati because it considers Pawar as the son of the soil. “In all their rallies they have attacked Sharad Pawar, but they are not saying what they are going to do for Baramati. Pawar has done a lot for this constituency which they are criticizing,” said Namdeo Borkar, a farmer.

The other obstacle for the BJP is that this constituency has a huge population — about 4.50 lakh — of Dhangars (shepherds). The Dhangars are angry with the BJP for not granting them Scheduled Tribe status which it had promised before the 2014 polls, and have decided not to vote for the BJP.

Sakshana Salgar, president of NCP Yuvati unit who is from the Dhangar community, said, “The anger among the people will be seen on polling day and BJP will have to pay a price for it.”

The BJP is hoping that the Dhangar votes, which may go against it, get divided between the NCP and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi candidate, the front floated by Prakash Ambedkar. The front has become quite popular among the Dhangars as Ambedkar has fielded 7 candidates throughout the state.