Battlelines drawn in four seats of Pune district

Even as political parties have not officially nominated its candidates in three of the four constituencies of Pune district, battle lines are already drawn among the contestants. With polls just 50 days away, the fights have become clear in all the four Lok Sabha seats in Pune district — Pune, Baramati, Shirur and Maval.

In Pune, the contest is between Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Murlidhar Mohol and Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar. Both the BJP and the Congress have officially announced their candidates, who have started their respective campaigns too.

In Baramati, the fight is set to be between Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Supriya Sule of Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar). While Sharad Pawar has himself announced Sule’s candidature earlier this month at a public rally in Bhor, he has also started campaigning for her considering that the contest is going to be fierce. On Saturday, senior Pawar held another public meeting for Sule in which other leaders of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), including Shiv Sena’s (UBT) Sanjay Raut, and Balasaheb Thorat of Congress were also present.

Sunetra has also started her campaign by holding smaller meetings with younger son Jay mostly seen by her side.

At Shirur, NCP (SCP) has decided to field sitting MP and actor-turned-politician Amol Kolhe while Ajit-led NCP is all set to nominate Shivajirao Adhalrao.

On Saturday, Adhalrao, a Shiv Sena leader, met Ajit Pawar and announced that he will officially join the NCP on March 26. In the seat-sharing arrangement of Mahayuti, Shirur Lok Sabha constituency is with Ajit’s NCP.

“I met Ajit Pawar after a discussion with chief minister Eknath Shinde and as decided by them, I will join NCP on March 26 and contest from Shirur to take revenge of the 2019 defeat,” said Adhalrao.

In 2019, Kolhe had defeated Adhalrao in a fiercely fought battle. “The battle for Shirur is between a loyalist and a turncoat. Adhalrao has already changed three parties and will change one more in the coming days,” said Kolhe on Adhalrao joining NCP to fight polls.

At Maval, Sena’s Shrirang Barne is likely to lock horns with Sanjog Waghere of Sena (UBT). The Eknath Shinde-led Sena has finalised Barne’s name, a sitting MP, in Maval, which has been a stronghold of the party. Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray has indicated that Waghere is a likely candidate from the party for Maval seat. Waghere, who served as Pimpri-Chinchwad mayor and the city’s NCP president, recently joined Sena (UBT) in Thackeray’s presence.

The clash

Pune: Murlidhar Mohol (BJP) vs Ravindra Dhangekar (Cong)

Baramati: Supriya Sule (NCP-SCP) vs Sunetra Pawar (NCP)

Shirur: Amol Kolhe (NCP-SCP) vs Shivajirao Adhalrao (NCP)

Maval: Shrirang Barne (Shiv Sena) vs Sanjog Waghere (Shiv Sena-UBT) (likely)