NCP family turf Baramati split over Pawar play: Saheb or Dada

AN AUTORICKSHAW plastered with election posters stands in the middle of a busy market blaring out its message on the PA system, “Apki baar…Sunetra Pawar!”

The Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) may have managed to cleverly tweak ally BJP’s slogan to its advantage, but in Baramati, the proprietorship of the Pawar surname is another story altogether. For, to those who say “Pawar Saheb” to indicate which way their votes are headed, pointing out even teasingly that both are Pawars is blasphemous. “Ek hi Pawar hain yahaan… Sharad Pawar (there is only Pawar here, Sharad Pawar),” is the instant comeback. “Haan doosre bhi hain, par woh dada hain” (Yes, there is another, too, but he is dada (elder brother)”.

From knowing Saheb (Sharad Pawar), dada (‘elder brother’ Ajit Pawar), tai (‘sister’ Supriya Sule) and vehni (‘sister-in-law’ Sunetra Pawar) as members of the one big benefactor Pawar family to now seeing them standing on opposite side of the political arena, is a first for the 23.15 lakh electorate of Baramati that stands almost as divided today as the Pawar family itself, with the lines intensifying as it edges closer to election day on May 7. But after having absorbed the initial shock of the NCP’s split, they have by now come to terms with the situation and have their allegiances mapped out.

The high-profile Baramati Lok Sabha seat in western Maharashtra has become one of the most keenly contested battles of the 2024 general elections. With three-time MP and Sharada Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule taking on Sunetra Pawar, wife of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who split from the National Congress Party (NCP) and joined the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance last year, the fight is as much about the Pawars, as about