Shiv Sena’s son of the soil fights Pawar & sons

Maval: Two months ago, the Nationalist Congress Party was a divided house when Parth Pawar, 28-year-old son of Ajit Pawar, decided to contest from Maval against Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Barne. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who had decided to contest from Madha, announced prematurely that Parth would not be contesting as the party couldn’t have three Lok Sabha candidates from the same family — his daughter Supriya Sule was contesting from Baramati.

However, when Parth refused to back down, Pawar Senior himself decided to withdraw. Now, the party has been rushing all its big guns to campaign for Parth. Pawar, Sule, 23 other leaders and the entire Pawar clan have been campaigning.

Ajit Pawar has been tapping every influential leader, irrespective of party affiliation, to make an emotional appeal for his son. Even bitter NCP rivals have been approached, including Maruti Bhapkar who contested on an AAP ticket in 2014.


The Shiv Sena has a sizeable hold here, winning since 2009. This time though, Barne got off on the wrong foot when local BJP leaders refused to work for him because he has been at loggerheads with them for five years. Finally, top Sena and BJP leaders managed a patch-up.

But it’s not all that smooth for Parth either. Barne has been telling farmers how it was under the reign of Ajit Pawar that three farmers were shot dead while agitating against a water pipeline project. The NCP is aware of the anger, but is hoping that the urban areas like Pimpri Chinchwad, Panvel and Karjat will vote for them.

“NCP did a lot of work for Pimpri Chinchwad after being voted out of the corporation. The Sena-BJP combine hasn’t been able to do much. The NCP is promising that with a member of the Pawar clan representing them, there would be much development and that is something for us to consider,” said Avinash Wagh, a resident of Chinchwad.

Barne, on the other hand, has a strong people connect. He campaigns that his rival is an outsider and only he (Barne) can solve local issues. His supporters frequently raise slogans in Marathi, “Baramati cha parcel Baramati la pathava,’ (send back Baramati’s parcel).

In the previous polls, the runnersup was the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), with 3.54 lakh votes. This time, NCP has a tie-up with PWP and if Pawar manages to swing all of PWP and NCP votes polled last time, he may just pip Barne.