Staring at defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Ajit Pawar, senior NCP leader and ex-Dy CM of Maharashtra went the extra mile to secure victory for his son, Parth Pawar. According to reports, Ajit Pawar has personally contacted 80 BJP and 5 Shiv Sena corporators, in the industrial city of Maval, to lend a helping hand to secure victory for his son.
Parth Pawar, a London educated lad, has been directly brought in the centre of NCP’s huge dynastic political empire, to fight the electoral battle from Maval, he seems to be disjoint from the political realities of Maharashtra.
Seema Savale, a BJP corporator from the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) said she had received a personal call from Ajit Pawar. She said, “Most of the BJP corporators from Pimpri-Chinchwad have received calls from Ajit Pawar personally. The corporators who live in Maval constituency have been requested to help Parth, while those in Shirur have been urged to back (Amol) Kolhe.”
Rejecting the possibility of extending any help to Parth Pawar, Seema Savale reiterated her support for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance candidate from the constituency “Obviously not. We will be supporting our own BJP-Sena alliance candidates in both the constituencies.”
Son of BJP Corporator Anuradha Ganapat Gorkhe, Amit Gorkhe also claimed to have received a similar call for support from Ajit Pawar. However, Gorkhe too rejected that any help will be extended to the NCP candidate and confirmed support for BJP and Shiv Sena. “He requested us to help out Parth, but we told him that since we are from the BJP, we will be standing by our candidate,” he said.
BJP General Secretary Sarang Kamtekar said that Ajit Pawar was not only calling BJP’s corporator but also others who are relevant in the electoral scenario of Maval. He also claimed that these ‘calls’ are nothing more than a ‘desperate’ attempt in face of an imminent defeat. “He is even calling RSS workers… It is a part of their (NCP’s) political strategy. But the BJP is a cadre-based party and our workers and leaders are committed to our ideology. His calls show his desperation, but they will not make any difference.”
The alliance candidate from Maval, Shrirang Chandu Barne, who is the current sitting MP from the constituency, taking a dig at Pawar and claimed that NCP knew that it was staring at a defeat in Maval“…Otherwise, why would Pawar call up BJP-Sena corporators? I want to tell him that the BJP and Sena corporators are honest and committed. They will not fall into this trap,” Barne said.
Parth who was in the crosshairs of his critics for his limited knowledge about politics has been continuously striking chords of his family’s political history to tune in with the electoral processes. “I have my aunt (Supriya Sule), father (Ajit Pawar) and grandfather (Sharad Pawar) with me,” he said. Parth was also criticized for “speaking Marathi like an Englishman.”
With elections nearing in, this is probably just one example of the many desperate attempts to save political ground against the NDA. Political dynasties in India, which have been plaguing the Indian democracy for long, are not only fighting for political relevance but for their survival. The NCP family which has been marred under allegations of scams worth Billions of rupees, these claims, clearly point towards NCP’s fast receding political ground in Maharashtra.
