Even as the Congress and NCP are yet to decide who will contest from the Pune Lok Sabha seat, in the neighbouring Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, looks all set to take on her long-time rival Mahadev Jankar, president of Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), who gave her a tough fight in the 2014 election.
Jankar, a minister in the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government, sounded confident that the Baramati seat would be allotted to his party. “There is no doubt that the Baramati seat would go to our party and I will contest again from Baramati,” Jankar told The Indian Express.
“My life is dedicated to the people…I work for them all the time,” he added.
Sule, who has won the Baramati seat twice, said she was not worried about the prospect of contesting against Jankar. “Why should I be worried? I am not bothered by who my rival candidate is. I have been busy working for my constituency and voters will take a call depending on my work,” she said.
There have been rumours about the Shiv Sena fielding state minister Vijay Shivtare from Baramati, in case the party doesn’t enter into an alliance with the BJP. Shivtare, however, refused to comment. “The final decision is taken by our party leadership,” he said.
Jankar had managed to spring a surprise in the 2014 election, when initial trends on counting day had shown him leading over Sule. Sule finally won by a margin of over 69,000 votes, though she had won the seat by a margin of 3 lakh votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.
In the 2014 election, Jankar had received most of his votes from the Khadakwasla, Purandar and Daund assembly seats. In the subsequent assembly election, these three constituencies voted for BJP, Shiv Sena and RSP candidates.
Political observers, however, believe that Jankar is no longer as popular in the Dhangar community, which has a strong voter presence of 3.5 lakh in Baramati constituency. “In the 2019 election, Jankar centred his speeches around getting reservation under the ST category for the Dhangar community. It drew massive crowds and applause for him,” said political observer Manav Kamble.
However, the Dhangar community’s demand for reservation under the ST category has not been accepted in the last four years and this, said Kamble, may work against Jankar. “… He even went to say that he is a leader who represents all the communities, and not just the Dhangar community. This has further alienated the Dhangars,” said Kamble.
Currently, the community gets 3.5 per cent quota in government jobs and education under the Nomadic Tribe category. There is anger among the community members as they feel the government, which has accepted the Maratha community’s demand for a quota, has not done justice to them. The community has a sizeable population of about one crore people in Maharashtra.
“… In the 2014 elections, Jankar was aggressive… he managed to get the Dhangar community’s support and the Modi wave helped him. In the ensuing elections, the situation has changed. He is no more the hero of Dhangar community as he has failed to bring justice to them. The election will be a one-sided affair, in favour of Sule,” said Kamble.
