Maharashtra: BJP’s Sugar Barons Seek Alternatives As Ally NCP Tightens Grip On Key Assembly Seats

When Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar — the octogenarian politician and founder of the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of the past, wrested control of the party from the latter and joined the ruling Mahayuti coalition in July 2023, a lot many feathers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were ruffled.

On the one hand, the party cadre found it difficult to justify an alliance with NCP since BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the 2014 assembly elections by claiming that NCP and its leaders, particularly Ajit Pawar (who was a Deputy Chief Minister in the NCP-Congress coalition government) were involved in the multi-crore irrigation and state co-operative bank scam.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — BJP’s apex leader in the state, somehow managed to convince the cadre to honour the coalition dharma ever since NCP became a part of the Mahayuti and especially so during the recently held 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

However, there is one group Fadnavis has not been able to pacify — the outsiders and the turncoats from the sugarcane growing cash-rich western Maharashtra region, who joined BJP before the 2019 state assembly elections.

Since BJP has traditionally found it difficult to entrench itself in this fertile crescent dominated by Maratha political families with feudal roots, a conscious effort was seen to have been made by the party to poach heavyweight leaders from the opposition fold.

These efforts led to the entry of seasoned Maratha faces from Congress like Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, currently serving his sixth term as a legislator from Shirdi in Ahmednagar district and Harshwardhan Patil who represented Indapur in Pune district as a legislator from 1995 to 2014.

Both former Congress leaders' families are active in the sugar making business. While Vikhe Patils control the Pravara Sugar Factory in Pravara Nagar, those related to Patil from Indapur control the Karmayogi Sugar Factory near Indapur.

To make up for its negligible clout in the Kolhapur district, a bastion of the sugar and milk co-operatives, BJP had also inducted a relatively young Samarjitsinha Ghatge who had contested as an independent candidate from the Kagal seat in the 2019 state assembly elections.

While Vikhe Patil from Shirdi is said to have joined BJP back then by sensing the changing mood on the ground, the former Indapur legislator Patil and Ghatge from Kagal had a common cause — to wrest away their respective home assembly seats from the sitting legislators of the NCP.

However, to add to the agony of BJP leaders Patil and Ghatge, the NCP legislators whom they were planning to dislodge, sided with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP during the party split. Later, the same Ajit Pawar–led NCP became part of the Mahayuti, putting the BJP's two inductees in a dilemma.

Considering that the seats they were vying for might go to the ally NCP's kitty during the seat-sharing talks for the upcoming state assembly polls, both — Ghatge as well as Patil, had conveyed their fears to the state’s senior BJP leadership. Notably, both are seen as close confidantes of Fadnavis.

Since Ghatge could not receive any word of assurance from Fadnavis regarding the former’s claim on the Kagal seat, he announced his decision to join the opposition NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) on 3 September 2024.

On the other hand, Patil has indicated that he too might jump the ship if his candidature from Indapur is not assured. When asked whether he too would consider joining NCP (SP), Patil said that he would consider all options, including filing an independent candidature.

Advantage Sharad Pawar, More Trouble For The BJP

The joke on the streets of Kolhapur goes that BJP leader Chandrakant Patil — the second in line of command in the state unit — chose to contest for 2019 assembly elections from a safe seat like Kothrud in Pune city because neither the saffron party nor the leader were confident of his win from any seat in his home district.

This is the reason why when Ghatge, who belongs to a royal family from which the illustrious Kolhapur princely state ruler Shahu Chhatrapati was adopted, joined BJP in 2019, Fadnavis saw in him a future legislator who could open the party’s electoral account for the first time in the district.

Moreover, Ghatge had everything that could help BJP curry favour with the electorate. A soft spoken chartered accountant by profession, Ghatge is the son of Kagal’s former MLA Vikramsinha Ghatge and runs the renowned Chhatrapati Shahu Sugar Factory.

However, in Ghatge now deciding to leave BJP and join NCP (SP) lies not just a tale of setback for the saffron party, but can also guarantee a brownie point for Sharad Pawar against his rebel nephew Ajit Pawar.

Ghatge’s rival and Kagal's sitting five-time NCP legislator Hasan Mushrif was seen as a staunch Sharad Pawar loyalist until Ajit Pawar wrested control of the party from his uncle.

When Mushrif joined ranks with the rebel nephew, Sharad Pawar was hurt. Now if Ghatge is fielded as an NCP (SP) candidate and wins against Mushrif (thanks to the pro-Maratha caste sentiment on the rise in rural Maharashtra), this could help senior Pawar assert his supremacy over his nephew.

In a similar scenario, if Patil from Indapur manages to win from his home seat by joining NCP (SP) or by contesting as an independent against Ajit Pawar-led NCP’s sitting legislator Dattatray Bharne, this might further dent the BJP cadre's morale in western Maharashtra where it still continues to struggle.

In the 2019 assembly polls, BJP' seat share here had come down to 20 from 24 in 2014. In the recently held Lok Sabha elections, the Mahayuti seat share in this region dropped from nine out of 12 in 2019 to a dismal four. On the other hand, Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition led by Sharad Pawar expanded its hold with NCP (SP) scoring four while its allies Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) won two and one seat respectively.

In state politics, the region is important politically more so since it sends 70 legislators to the state assembly — the highest, region-wise, and because most ministers in any coalition government until now have been from this cash-rich region.

Considering this, BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Fadnavis reportedly tried convincing Ajit Pawar over letting the saffron party field Ghatge from Kagal and Patil from Indapur. However, ally Pawar has already declared that his party will not part with the two crucial seats.