In his characteristic 56-inch chest kind of bravado, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and his nephew and former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in their family stronghold of Western Maharashtra’s Baramati. The family has never lost an election ever since senior Pawar began his political career.
Reportage: Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
Photographs: Sanjay Sawant/Rediff.com
Arriving at 3:10 pm (which says something about the man’s punctuality, given that the official time was 3 pm) in a three-helicopter security detail from Rahuri in Ahmednagar, where he began his election campaign, Modi launched an offensive against the Pawars.
Addressing a huge rally, Modi said that the sea of humanity who had gathered to listen to him was proof that the Pawars were on the verge of losing their fiefdom.
“The viraat jansamudra (sea of humanity) here has not come to listen to an election speech; they have not gathered here to elect a government or to decide which candidate will win the Baramati seat. I strongly believe that you are fighting the second battle for Independence and want freedom from the slavery of the chacha-bhatija,” he said.
Modi charged that the Pawars had given birth to a culture of sycophancy in this part of the state. Striking a chord with the farmers of Baramati, Modi said that these two leaders showered their political patronage by pawning the interests of farmers by not providing them with adequate irrigation facilities or offering the market rates for their sugarcane produce.
“For how long can the people tolerate this? Be it Baramati or the rest of Maharashtra, the farmer here has woken up to claim his rightful dues and will claim independence on october 15,” he said.
Comparing this awakening to the time of Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha, Modi said that the people of Baramati would repeat the act on October 15 (the day Maharashtra and Haryana vote for their respective state assemblies). Modi, who spoke for close to 30 minutes did not attack the former deputy chief minister over the Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam for which the latter had temporarily resigned.
And he mentioned the senior Pawar by his name only once during his speech.
However, Modi went all out against the mismanagement of sugar co-operatives under Congress-NCP’s 15-year rule that has resulted into these co-operatives running losses of several hundred crores. “How is it that when the same people run their private sugar mills they make profits of thousands of crores? How do they manage this sleight of hand?” Modi asked. 
He charged the Congress-NCP government of indulging in corruption for more than 10 years (a mistake actually, as the Congress-NCP alliance has been in power in Maharashtra since 2009, but this 10.10 was a sarcastic take on the time shown in the clock, the NCP’s election symbol) and increasing it by 10 times during this period.
Invoking Maratha warrior king Shivaji (which he has often been doing ever since he first addressed a rally in Mumbai soon after Shiv Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray’s death in November 2012), Modi attacked the senior Pawar for politicising Pakistan’s attack on Indian posts along the border.
“Who else but Maharashtra’s bravest warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji can offer inspiration at such times,” he said. Modi castigated Pawar for using language that demoralises the jawans on the border. He also attacked Pawar for his docile reaction when Pakistan had attacked India’s posts during his tenure as the defence minister in 2004.
“Log mere iradon ko bhali-bhanti jaante hain (the people of India very well know about my commitment to national security). In his tenure he would only talk, but now our soldiers are actually pulling the trigger,” Modi said. Modi cleverly played the caste card at this rally. He invoked how the Dhangar (shepherd) community in Baramati is fighting for its rights against the Pawars.
Wearing the traditional Dhangar attire of an orange turban, a rough woolen shawl and a stick, he received the loudest applause when he asked the community to rise up to the occasion and teach the Pawars a lesson.
Dhangars, who make up an estimated 40 per cent electorate in the 3.10 lakh-strong Baramati assembly constituency, are likely to play a decisive on October 19, feel BJP’s party functionaries.
Balasaheb Gawade, the BJP’s candidate against the junior Pawar, is a Dhangar. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, senior Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule had won against the Rashtriya Samaj Party’s Mahadev Jankar, also a Dhangar, by a margin of 70,000 votes. Sule had won the same Lok Sabha seat in 2009 by a huge margin of 4 lakh votes.
The Dhangars had been demanding reservations in the state. When asked what part of Modi’s speech could prove to be a turning point in this seat, a top Maharashta BJP functionary said ‘Dhangars’.
Coverage: Maharashtra Assembly Election
