For several years, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) efforts to storm Sharad Pawar’s citadel of Baramati and politically dominate the sugar heartland of western Maharashtra have come unstuck. Barring some successes in 2019, this region has largely remained the preserve of the NCP and the Pawar clan.
However, in using Mr. Sharad Pawar’s nephew, Ajit Pawar and his splinter NCP faction, as the ‘Trojan horse’ to breach the 82-year-old NCP patriarch’s bastion, the BJP sees a fair chance in dominating both Baramati and the crucial sugar belt (Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur districts) for the first time in Maharashtra’s political history.
The Baramati Lok Sabha seat (in Pune district) has been shorthand for the Pawar clan’s dominance in the State’s politics, being held almost continuously by Mr. Sharad Pawar from 1991 till 2009, and then by his daughter Supriya Sule.
