Vidarbha to decide on 10 lS seats
At stake is the reputations of BJP’s former national president Nitin Gadkari, senior NCP leader Praful Patel, senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik, four-time Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul and Dalit leader and late Dr BR Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, as 10 lok Sabha constituencies in the once Congress’ traditional bastion-turned-volatile Vidarbha region go to lok Sabha polls on Thursday.
The hectic monthly-long campaign for 10 lok Sabha seats of Vidarbha region ended on Tuesday evening. The electioneering was so intense and tiring could be gauged from the fact that the contestants and their supporters had no go but to reach out to voters in the length and breadth of the vast backward region, under temperatures soaring up to over 40°C.
Even after the laborious campaigning by various political parties, there is no perceptible wave in favour of or against any political party, in the region. Nor are the issues like the unabated farmers’ suicides, havoc wreaked by hailstorm and unseasonal rain on standing crops, development backlog and the long-pending demand for a separate Statehood for Vidarbha are cutting ice with voters in the region.
Though there is anti-incumbency in some constituencies like Nagpur where four-time Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar is taking on Gadkari and Ramtek where four-time Congress MP Mukul Wasnik is fighting Krupal Tumane of the Shiv Sena, it is the caste factor, candidates’ profiles, their personal reach to the voters and infighting within the rival party ranks that the two major political formations — Congress-NCP alliance and Shiv Sena-BJP combine — are banking heavily in the elections.
Known once as a pocket-borough of the Congress, Vidarbha region has in the last decade or so become volatile in terms of mood swings of the voters towards political parties and their candidates. If the 1998 lok Sabha polls — held a year prior to the split of the Congress and formation of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — saw the Sonia Gandhi-led party sweep the Vidarbha region by bagging all the eleven seats, the 1999 polls produced mixed results, with the Sena-BJP alliance winning six out of 11 seats and the Congress-contesting in alliance with Prakash Ambaedkar-led BBM— securing the remaining five seats. The then fledgling NCP, which made an electoral debut and contested the 1999 polls on its own strength, drew a blank in Vidarbha region.
In the 2004 lok Sabha polls, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance put up a superlative performance in Vidarbha by winning 10 out of 11 seats, while the Congress bagged the remaining one seat (of Nagpur). But, pendulum swung once again in 2009 lok Sabha polls (when total number of seats in the region came down from 11 to ten owing to delimitation of constituencies). In this election, the Congress -NCP alliance and Sena-BJP combine won five seats each.
Among the ten seats —Nagpur, Ramtek, Wardha, Amravati, Akola, Buldhana, Yavatmal-Washim, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli-Chimur and Bhandara-Gondia — that are going to polls on April 10, the BJP and Shiv Sena are contesting on six and four seats respectively. Similarly, between the ruling DF partners, the Congress has fielded candidates in seven constituencies, while the NCP is contesting three seats.
Interestingly, the Congress-NCP alliance candidates are engaged in straight contests in five of the ten constituencies, while there will be a triangular contest in Yavatmal-Washim, where the Raj Thackeray-led MNS has put up a candidate. Though there are two Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates in two of the constituencies (Nagpur and Chandrapur) and two Dalit candidates (Prakash Ambedkar of Barip Bahujan Patry in Akola and Rajendra Gavai of the Republican Party of India in Amravati) in two other constituencies. In essence, it will be virtually direct contests between the Congress-NCP alliance and Sena-BJP combine in nine of the ten constituencies.
In its effort to buck the severe anti-incumbency faced by it, the Congress has changed its candidates in five out of the seven seats it contesting, while it has re-nominated its sitting MPs Vilas Muttemwar and Mukul Wasnik. Thanks to its decision of changing its candidates in five of the seven seats it is fights, the Congress will combat anti-incumbency to an extent in these five constituencies.
The Congress has put up two of its State Ministers Shivajrao Moghe and Sanjay Deotale in Yavatmal-Washim and Chandrapur respectively. But, from among the two constituencies it has re-nominated its senior sitting MPs, the Congress is on a sticky wicket in Ramtek where Congress’ Wasnik retaining his seat retaining look slim, while Muttemwar does not have an easy task on hand as he fights Gadkari in Napgur.
Not surprisingly, the contest in Nagpur is drawing maximum attention in the first phase of lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra. BJP’s former president Nitin Gadkari is fighting the first direct election after a gap of 29 years (he had been defeated by Gev M Awari of the Congress by a margin of 21,552 votes from Nagpur (west) constituency) in the 1985 Maharashtra Assembly polls).
Since he had secured backdoor entry to the Maharashtra legislature through the Upper House continuously since 1989, Gadkari’s mass base in Nagpur was all along doubted by his political rivals including those within the BJP also. No wonder that Gadkari himself opted to contest the 2014 lok Sabha polls from his home city of Nagpur.
Gadkari is extremely popular among various sections of people in Nagpur. A Brahmin by caste, Gadkari has following among various strata of the society, including section of Muslims and Dalits. But Gadkari faces a formidable opponent in Vilas Muttemwar, who has been representing Nagpur in lok Sabha for the four terms. Incidentally, Gadkari is the second strong candidate — after three-time MP (twice as Congress representative and once as BJP nominee) Banwarilal Purohit. Purohit had lost the 2009 election to Muttemwar by a margin of 24,399 votes.
Apart from Gadkari, what has turned the spotlight on Nagpur is the fact that the orange city houses the headquarters of RSS. The presence of AAP candidate Anjali Damani, whose claim to fame is her expose on the alleged irregularities of Gadkari, in the electoral fray has made the contest interesting, if not difficult for the BJP candidate. It remains to be seen if Gadkari’s popularity among Nagpurites will help him romp home in the polls.
He may have won the 2009 polls against Independent candidate Nanabhau Patole a huge margin of 2,52,015 votes, but the going is not easy for NCP’s Praful Patel in the current lok Sabha polls, Patel’s opponent in the 2014 lok Sabha polls is the BJP’s Shishupal Patle.
Incidentally, Patle had emerged third in the 2009 lok Sabha polls, by polling 1,58,938 votes as against 4,88,522 votes secured by Patel and 2,37,899 votes got by the runner-up Nanabhau Patole.
Emerging third - in terms of votes polled -- in the 2009 lS does not make BJP’s Patle a weak candidate, Because, the same Patle had defeated Patel by a slender margin of 3,009 votes in the 2004 lok Sabha polls in a virtual direct contest between them.
The other prominent contests in the Vidarbha region are of two-time BJP MP Sachir Ahir (Chandrapur) who contributed in his own way to the expose of coal allocation scam, Telugu actress-turned-NCP nominee Navneet Rana nee Kaur (Amravati), late B R Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar (Akola), Shiv Sena’s three-time MP Bhavna Gawli (Yavatmal-Washim) and four-time Sena MP Anand Adsul.
Though it is difficult to predict as to the number of seats to be win by each of the two major political formations in Vidarbha, one can safely say from a study of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the major candidates in the fray and campaigning trends that the Sena-BJP alliance has an edge over the ruling Congress-NCP alliance in the region.
BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra whipped up the poll frenzy in Vidabha region by addressing rallies at Wardha, Akola, Amravati and Chandrapur. Interestingly enough, Modi gave a skip to Nagpur, a seat where Gadkari is contesting.
On his part, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi addressed public rallies at Wardha and Yavatmal. Congress president Sonia Gandhi shared the dias with two public rallies at Bandhara and Nagpur.