Baramati: Sule fights BJP efforts to breach Pawar bastion
Pune: NCP leader Supriya Sule weathered the `Modi wave' of 2014 to retain the family pocket borough of Baramati, though by a reduced margin, against Mahadev Jankar of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP), a BJP ally.
In 2019, BJP president Amit Shah has set his workers a target of winning 45 out of 48 seats in Maharashtra including Baramati. The saffron party has fielded a candidate on its own symbol, sending a message that it intends to give a tough fight to the Pawars on their home turf.
The NCP has been winning from Baramati Lok Sabha seat since 1999.
To take on Sule, the BJP has given ticket to Kanchan Kul, wife of Rahul Kul, the RSP MLA from Daund, who wields a considerable political clout in the area.
Sule, daughter of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, had defeated Jankar by more than 70,000 votes in 2014. The victory margin was comfortable, but much smaller than in 2009 when she had won by more than three lakh votes.
This time, Sule is leaving no stone unturned, reaching out to people across the constituency which covers assembly segments of Baramati, Daund, Indapur, Bhor, Khadakwasla and Purandar.
While the core of the constituency is made up of rural areas, the fringe areas of Khadakwasla, Balewadi, IT hub Hinjawadi alongwith Dhanakwadi and Chandani Chowk which are part of Pune cityhave urban voters.
NCP's Pune district chief Pradip Garatkar said the Modi wave and anti-incumbency did have some impact in 2014, but now people have experienced the BJP rule and are disappointed.
"Farmers are in great distress. There is a lot of anger against both the state and the Centre," he said.
Sule has worked very hard in the last five years, he said. "We have a very strong organisation. NCP workers have a strong presence at the booth-level," he added.
Garatkar denied that the BJP fielding a candidate on on its own `lotus' symbol will make any difference.
Sule, a recipient of the best parliamentarian award, has regained ground by addressing people's issues and ensuring implementation of various schemes, he said, claiming that she will win by at least 3 lakh votes.
MLA Rahul Kul, on the other hand, expressed confidence that the development works carried out by the BJP-led governments in the state and the Centre will tilt the scales in his wife's favour.
"We want here the kind of development that has taken place elsewhere in the state, which is possible only if the BJP candidate wins," he told PTI.
"At present development is restricted only to Baramati town and adjoining areas," he claimed.
"While our priority in urban areas will be to address traffic congestion, waste management, bad roads and other urban issues, in rural areas the focus will be on the issue of irrigation," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not addressed any rally in Baramati in 2014, but this time state leaders were trying to organise a Modi rally in the constituency, Kul said.
Prakash Pawar, a financial adviser and a resident of Kirkatwadi village in Khadakwasla area, said being on the outskirts of Pune city, it is grappling with issues of roads, water supply, sanitation and waste management.
Pawar praised Sule, saying she promptly looked into issues related to roads and waste management whenever they approached her, Aditya Joshi, a resident of Chandani Chowk, said she was approachable but needed to increase her outreach in the urban areas.
Of the six Assembly segments in the constituency, two are represented by the NCP (Baramati and Indapur) and one each by RSP (Daund), BJP (Khadakwasla), Shiv Sena (Purandar) and Congress (Bhor).
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
