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Up against formidable Pawar

Meena Menon

On the otherwise deserted road from Natepute to Pimpri village, women sit around tallish cement pillars, with steel and plastic vessels near them. They are waiting to collect water from leakage in the pipes. A closer look shows that water comes erratically through a pipe on top of the pillar, a curious arrangement. But for women like Mangal who live in a small hamlet called Lande Vasti, it is quite normal.

Down the road to Pimpri in Malshiras taluka of Solapur district, part of the newly created Madha Lok Sabha seat, things seem no better. Here the Lonar, an other backward class (OBC) community is dominant.

One of its representatives complains loudly to Subhash Deshmukh, sitting Solapur MP and now the Lok Sabha candidate from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is campaigning in the village.

While most of the youth are educated thanks to institutions set up by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA from Malshiras, Vijay Singh Mohite Patil, jobs are hard to come by. Years ago, a canal of the Deodhar project was to come to the village but there are no signs of it still.

Drinking water is scarce and like in the rest of the State, electricity is unpredictable, says Sangeeta Karche. Ravindra Zende says many of the youngsters are graduates but they have to migrate to Mumbai and other places to do manual labour.

Besides, there is no bus to the village. Students cycle four km to catch a bus to high school and college. Vishal Kenche, an eighth standard student, says: “I want only one thing here — water.”

Pimpri exemplifies the problems in Madha; but there are enclaves of high development with sugar factories, irrigation and horticulture.

The contest here seems a bit one-sided, given that Mr. Deshmukh is facing the formidable Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar of the NCP, though the former confidently says he has the upper hand. Both the main candidates from Madha are conscious of the severe problems in the area.

The seat comprises the six Assembly segments of Madha, Karmala, Malshiras and Sangole from Solapur district and Man and Phaltan from Satara.

The Marathas and Dhanghars, a nomadic tribe, dominate the constituency. All the segments except Sangole and Karmala are with the NCP MLAs. However, Sangole MLA Ganpatrao Deshmukh from the Peasants and Workers Party is supporting Sharad Pawar who also claims the support of the Shiv Sena MLA from Karmala.

Mr. Deshmukh, 51, has an innovative campaigning theme. He pitches the fact that Reliance wanted to set up a sugar factory in the area but Mr. Pawar stopped it. “Reliance was offering Rs. 2,000 per tonne to farmers for cane and now they have lost out on at least Rs. 1,000 crore in the area,” he says.

He puts irrigation and water supply as top priorities. He says there has been uneven development and reels off a long list of incomplete projects in the area. In fact he points out that his powerful rival has done nothing more than perform pujas for projects.

Mr. Pawar, on the other hand, is confident of victory by a record margin.

He was the Minister in charge of Solapur for many years and knows the area well. In 1991, he says he started a horticulture scheme for farmers and people from Sangole took up the challenge.

Now there are orchards spread over 35, 000 acres and people have built homes worth over a crore of rupees, he boasts.

The Dhangars, a large shepherd community, have traditionally supported the Marathas so he feels he has nothing to fear from Mahadeo Jankar who is a contestant from the community from the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha. The Bahujan Samaj Party too has a candidate — Rahul Sarwade, though he is unlikely to pose much of a challenge.

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