Baramati: Sunetra Pawar, wife of Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who is taking on her sister-in-law sitting Baramati MP Supriya Sule, said she entered politics because her husband changed his stance and she had to support him.
In an interview with ThePrint, Sunetra, popularly known as Sunetra vahini in Baramati, said, “I was into social work and the rest of my family was in politics, so I was happy with my work. There was no question of coming here, but dada (Ajit Pawar, popularly known as Ajit dada in Baramati) took a different stand. So, I had to support him.”
For the past three Lok Sabha elections, Sunetra was directly or indirectly involved in campaigning for Sule, then the candidate of the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and now her political rival.
The Pawar bastion of Baramati is set for a strange conflict this time with two factions of the NCP — one led by Sharad Pawar and the other by his nephew Ajit Pawar — locked in a conflict with each other.
The political conflict has spilled over to the Pawar family, with the candidates from both sides also being family members.
Sule, who has been a three-term MP from Baramati, is Sharad Pawar’s daughter, while Sunetra, a debutante, is the octogenarian’s daughter-in-law. Ajit Pawar is the son of Sharad Pawar’s elder brother Anantrao Pawar.
Last year, Ajit Pawar rebelled against his uncle along with a majority of the NCP’s MLAs to join hands with the ruling coalition in the state comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
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‘Relation and ideology are separate’
According to Sunetra, when she got into politics, she came from a particular ideology.
“Our relation has its place and ideology has its own,” she told ThePrint.
“My agenda is different here,” she added.
On Sule’s performance as MP over the last 15 years, Sunetra said, “According to people, a lot of work that should have been done, wasn’t done.”
Ajit Pawar’s sibling, Shrinivas Pawar and his family have openly declared their support for Sule and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) faction.
Baramati MLA Ajit Pawar in public rallies has said the Pawar clan, barring his immediate family, has isolated him.
On this, Sunetra said, “People felt that I should contest. The people are with me and they are my family.”
While Sunetra is trying to wrest the family turf of Baramati from Sule for the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, her sons, Parth (the elder one) and Jay, are handling all the backroom management.
“Jay is handling my campaigning, he is conducting rallies, meeting people. Dada (Ajit Pawar) is handling the responsibility for the entire state, and I am also very busy, so someone or the other needs to manage the backstage, so Parth is doing that,” she explained.
Parth had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Maval constituency as a candidate of the undivided NCP.
No stranger to Baramati
Sunetra Pawar may be a political debutante, but she is not a stranger to the Baramati taluka, which is a part of the larger Baramati assembly constituency.
She has always campaigned for her husband during elections and is known to routinely step in for Ajit Pawar at rallies and personal invitations by members of the electorate.
She has also been engaged in social work in the taluka over the past two decades.
“I have been doing social work in Baramati for the past 20 years. I started my social work with a cleanliness drive in Katewadi (a village in Baramati),” she said, describing how she implemented various rural development drives in Katewadi for six years and then continued her work across the Baramati taluka through her non-governmental organisation — Environmental Forum of India.
“Through the NGO, I have worked on health, for students, implemented tree plantation drives, eye camps, cancer detection camps, haemoglobin camps and so on,” she added.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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