The current four-day tour of the Vidarbha area by Nationalist Congress Celebration (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, after almost two years, indicators the social gathering’s intent to make inroads right into a area the place the dominant gamers have at all times been the Congress and the BJP.
Mr. Pawar held various conferences with members from a cross-section of society – merchants, legal professionals, medical doctors, amongst others.
The Shiv Sena, NCP’s ally within the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Authorities, too, has been attempting arduous to make inroads within the area. After severing ties with the BJP publish the 2019 Meeting ballot, the Sena has been making an attempt to increase its affect exterior its conventional areas of dominance – Mumbai metropolis, the Mumbai Metropolitan Area (MMR) and the Konkan.
Nonetheless, the Sena and the NCP face a frightening process of supplanting the 2 nationwide events.
Whereas the BJP owes its affect on this belt to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Nagpur, the Congress has at all times had tall leaders from Vidarbha. This area has 10 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats from the State and 62 of the 288 Meeting seats.
The NCP, which has its base within the ‘sugar heartland’ of western Maharashtra, has little affect in Vidarbha, barring some remoted outposts. Nonetheless, Mr. Pawar, considered the ‘architect’ of the tripartite MVA Authorities, is now increasing his footprint in Vidarbha – a area seared eternally in reminiscence following suicides by farmers.
Whereas Praful Patel was the NCP’s ‘level man’ within the Gondia-Bhandara space, the social gathering faces a setback after ex-House Minister Anil Deshmukh’s current arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a cash laundering case.
“Anil Deshmukh’s fall has dented the NCP. He’s a resourceful particular person, a five-time MLA from Katol in Nagpur, and was the dominant determine for almost twenty years,” says an analyst.
Regardless of the efforts of the NCP and the Sena to extend their respective bases, political historical past proves the Congress’s enduring endurance right here.
“It might be recalled that in 1977, regardless of the Janata wave sweeping the nation, the area resolutely voted Congress with loyalists like Nashikrao Tirpude, Vasant Sathe, who held the Akola and Wardha Lok Sabha seats, carrying the day for the Congress,” says Pune Metropolis Congress spokesperson Ramesh Iyer.
The area has given the Congress three Chief Ministers – Maratrao Kannamwar, Vasantrao Naik (who stays the State’s longest-serving CM), and Suddhakar Rao Naik. The fourth CM from this area is Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP.
The Congress has additionally maintained a robust second line of leaders with massive gamers comparable to Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Nana Patole, Reduction and Rehabilitation Minister Vijay Wadettiwar, Vitality Minister Nitin Raut and Yashomati Thakur – all influential politicians from this belt.
Just like the NCP, the Sena’s presence right here is proscribed. Whereas Bhavana Gawali, a five-term MP from Washim-Yavatmal Lok Sabha constituency, is a vital Sena chief, the social gathering, by way of Eknath Shinde’s appointment as Gadchiroli’s Guardian Minister, has been attempting to exert its affect within the Maoist-hit area.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s deal with finishing the bold Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway, named after the late Bal Thackeray, is proof of the saffron social gathering’s earnestness to construct a base in Vidarbha.
But, the Chief Minister’s current ill-health may put the brakes on his social gathering’s enlargement on this belt. Because the clock ticks in direction of the essential civic polls in February 2022, solely time will inform which social gathering holds the playing cards within the battle for Vidarbha.
