MUMBAI: Sharad Pawar‘s self-proclaimed swansong in electoral politics ended in a damp squib with his nephew’s NCP winning more than 4x the seats that his own party could muster. In retaliation for Ajit’s decision to field his wife against Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, the Maratha warhorse had turned the Baramati contest again into a prestige fight, pitching Ajit’s nephew against him. The gambit didn’t pay off.
Ajit’s NCP has upped its score from a mere six assembly segment leads in the LS results to a tally of 41 MLAs, in the process beating the senior Pawar’s nominees in 27 head-to-head clashes; the latter won 7 of those contests.
Ajit has extended his sway over western Maharashtra (22 seats), Marathwada (10) and Vidarbha (5) while the majority of seats the senior Pawar held on to are all in western Maharashtra.
“Maharashtra chooses pink,” said deputy CM Ajit Pawar on his social media handle, highlighting the role played by the Ladki Bahin Scheme in Mahayuti‘s and his own NCP’s victory Saturday.
From his party’s dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections, where it won only one of the four seats contested, the 40-seat haul in the assembly polls is a transformation hardly anybody had seen coming. However, it came on the back of humility to recognise mistakes, the strength and stamina to run a hard campaign when chips were down, and the knack of recognising a winner.
Ajit and his band of seasoned politicians he took with him while splitting NCP in 2023 did all of this – they did not repeat the mistakes they had made in the LS polls – ran an untiring campaign, mostly in the hinterland; and recognised the game-changing potential of Ladki Bahin Yojna, going to the extent of adopting pink, a feminine shade, as its campaign colour.
He had taken 40 MLAs with him when he split NCP. On Saturday, his party won as many seats at a 75% strike rate, cementing its position in the BJP-headed Mahayuti.
Ajit, who put a marker down in the Pawar vs Pawar battle by defeating nephew and NCP-Sharad Pawar candidate Yugendra Pawar in Baramati, has earned the right to call his NCP “the real NCP”.
While Sharad Pawar’s NCP went into the polls riding on its Lok Sabha success, Ajit Pawar went beaten down and with only five months to get the party up and running again.
NCP’s decision to focus on Ladki Bahin Yojna without getting into a credit war over it with its allies, worked. “It’s still early days, but we know we won in villages. Picking pink as our campaign colour was a masterstroke,” said a senior neta. During the LS polls, NCP has taken an aggressive stand against Sharad Pawar. This time, the party avoided any direct attacks on Pawar. “When Mahayuti’s Sadabhau Khot made some controversial remarks, Ajit was quick to register his protest. He also admitted his mistake of fielding his wife Sunetra against Supriya Sule in Baramati. These steps helped blunt sympathy for Sharad Pawar,” said another neta.