Sharad Pawar seeks to make peace with old rival Thopte for daughter’s sake

Mumbai: NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that his daughter Supriya Sule retains the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency, and has even reached out to his arch-rival Anantrao Thopte.

Sule, a three-time MP, is likely to face challenge from Sunetra Pawar, wife of Sule’s cousin and president of the rival Nationalist Congress Party Ajit Pawar, in the coming election. Ajit, now deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, wields as much clout in Baramati as his uncle, if not more.

There was a time when Sharad Pawar would hold just one or two campaign rallies in Baramati, so sure he would be of his victory. But now, at 83, he is traveling the length and breadth of the constituency located in Pune district even before the elections are announced.

On Saturday, Pawar met Anantrao Thopte, who was recuperating from a knee surgery, at his house in Bhor.

Thopte, a nonagenarian, had won from the Bhor assembly seat – a part of Baramati Lok Sabha constituency – six times before losing in 1999.

His son Sangram Thopte is the current Congress MLA from Bhor. Anantrao, who was a cabinet minister in several governments in the state before 1995, was known as Sharad Pawar’s arch foe within the Pune district Congress.

Ulhas Pawar, a senior Congressman from Pune, told PTI that the Pawar-Thopte rivalry often played out in elections to the district cooperative bank, sugar cooperatives and milk federations.

Sangram Thopte, a three-time MLA, is said to be at loggerheads with Ajit Pawar in the district politics, he noted. Political alignments have changed drastically with Ajit parting ways with his uncle Sharad Pawar and joining the Shiv Sena-BJP government in the state last year.

Ulhas Pawar said the Pawar senior’s meeting with Anantrao was 'political compulsion.' 'One needs to make compromises. In coalition politics, compromises are inevitable. This meeting was for Sharad Pawar’s daughter’s sake. But if the truce lasts, it will help the prospects of the Congress and NCP (SP) in Pune district, and also those of the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition,” he added.

He also noted that senior Congress leaders from Bhor tehsil attended the public meeting at Bhor on Saturday where Sharad Pawar announced, in Sangram’s presence, Sule’s candidature from Baramati.

“Sangram Thopte…whatever you do for the tehsil, state and country, Sharad Pawar will be with you (though) we may have been on different paths earlier,' Pawar said at the rally.