Ajit Pawar Kickstarts Campaign for Baramati Seat, Hints at his Wife’s Candidature

Mumbai: Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Sunday launched the election campaign for Baramati Lok Sabha seat with a farmers’ rally in Indapur taluka. The election is likely to see the first electoral battle within the Pawar family.

Baramati has been the fiefdom of the Pawar family, whose members have been the MLA of the Baramati Sabha since 1967 and Lok Sabha member since 1991 (before that Sharad Pawar was the MP for one year from 1984 to 1985). As per the reports, Ajit’s wife Sunetra Pawar is the likely candidate against Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule.

Speaking at the rally, Ajit urged people to vote for the NDA and ensure it wins more than 400 Lok Sabha seats. The NCP leader claimed that more than 65 per cent voters in the country want to see Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister for the third term. “Mr. Modi has a vision. He has the ability to work tirelessly every day from early morning till late evening. I have seen that as I have travelled with him to various events in Maharashtra. Even when he comes from a foreign tour, there is no jet lag. He immediately starts his work. That is why 65 per cent people in the country want him back as the PM for the third time,” Ajit said.

The NCP leader assured his supporters that though their party has joined the government of Eknath Shinde and Devendra Fadnavis, they have not left the party’s ideology of secularism. He further said that in politics, some decisions have to be taken according to the existing situation.

“Even in 2019, we had gone with the Shiv Sena despite ideological differences. At that time also, the BJP had offered us to form the government with them. NCP would have got more share in the two-party alliance. But the party leadership decided to join the government with the Shiv Sena and Congress, which we accepted. Our ministers did a good job as long as we were part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. But the situation changed after the infighting in the Sjiv Sena. Eknath Shinde along with several ministers and MLAs took a different decision. After that development works in the constituencies of NCP legislators stopped. We decided to join the government in order to do the people’s work,” Ajit said.

In a clear indication that the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) will contest the Baramati Lok Sabha as part of the NDA, Ajit appealed to people to press “button next to clock symbol” and elect the candidate supporting PM Modi. He also hinted at his wife’s candidature by referring to Marathi idiom “char divas sasuche, char divas suneche”, which is literally translated as “if four days belong to mother-in-law, then four days belong to daughter-in-law”. He asked the women attending the rally to remember the idiom while voting in the Lok Sabha election.