MUMBAI: It seems that Sharad Pawar’s party, the NCP, faced significant challenges in the Assembly polls due to his failure to fulfill the promise of introducing fresh faces into the leadership and nurturing them, much like how Yashwantrao Chavan—Maharashtra’s first chief minister—mentored him.
Buoyed by a massive victory in the recent Lok Sabha elections, Pawar had pledged to provide opportunities to younger candidates. However, in his own constituency of Baramati—first represented by him and later by his nephew, Ajit Pawar, since the 1960s—he chose to field his own 32-year-old grand-nephew, Yogendra Pawar, against his nephew and rival, Ajit Pawar, who is also the deputy chief minister.
But the people opted for the more experienced Ajit Pawar. In the Lok Sabha election for the Baramati seat, Ajit Pawar’s wife, Sunetra Pawar, lost to Sharad Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule, by 150,000 votes. In the assembly segment, she trailed by 48,000 votes. Notably, in the state elections, Ajit Pawar won against his grand-nephew Yogendra by a significant margin of 1,00,899 votes.
In the neighbouring state assembly seat of Indapur, Pawar reintroduced the old face Harshvardhan Patil, who had lost in the state polls twice before. But NCP MLA Datta Mama Bharne won against him by 19,075 votes.
The NCP contested 59 seats in the recent election and won 41, while the NCP (SP) contested 89 seats but only managed to secure ten.
This outcome indicates that NCP voters preferred to align with Ajit Pawar for the party’s future rather than the 84-year-old Sharad Pawar. The mandate has dimmed the future of his daughter, Supriya Sule, who is also a Lok Sabha MP, especially in her competition against the assertive Ajit Pawar.
Similarly, Uddhav Thackeray who after losing the party and symbol was asking the people to support him against CM Eknath Shinde also was disappointed by the people.
Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena contested 79 seats and won the 57 seats while Thackeray-led Shiv Sena contested the 98 seats and won only 20. So, the strike rate of Shinde is far better than that of Thackeray.
COURSE CORRECTION
The massive win of MahaYuti indicates a tactical course correction after the Lok Sabha debacle, with RSS role in the campaign. Only five months back, BJP’s dismal tally of 9 seats dragged down the MahaYuti performance to 17 in Lok Sabha elections, which elects 48 MPs. In contrast, the opposition MVA won 30 seats. BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP went back to the drawing board and initiated corrective measures
few takers for NOTA
The NOTA option once again found few takers, with 0.75% of the electorate pressing the button in Maharashtra and 1.3% in Jharkhand. According to EC, Maharashtra witnessed 65% turnout in its single-phase polls on Nov 20.
