After losing the LS elections, Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra joins the RS poll battle
Sunetra Pawar, wife of Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar | Photo: X @SunetraA_Pawar
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra on Thursday filed nomination papers as NCP candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, days after she lost the Lok Sabha polls from Baramati.
Incidentally, apart from the NCP leaders, no politician from the Ajit Pawar-led party’s allies in the ruling Mahayuti – the BJP and the Shiv Sena – was present when Sunetra Pawar filed her nomination at the Vidhan Bhavan in the south from Mumbai.
Senior NCP leaders such as Rajya Sabha member Praful Patel, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, the party’s state unit president and Lok Sabha-elected MP Sunil Tatkare and Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Narhari Zirwal were present at the filing of the nomination.
Bhujbal said that while he was keen to contest the Rajya Sabha polls, he was not upset with Sunetra Pawar’s nomination, which he described as a “collective decision” of the party.
In the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, Sunetra Pawar lost from Baramati constituency in Pune district where her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, registered her fourth consecutive victory.
The NCP has decided to field Sunetra Pawar for the Rajya Sabha elections. Even I was keen to contest the elections, but at a meeting on Wednesday evening, the party leaders finalized her name, Bhujbal said.
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat has notified 10 vacancies in the Upper House: two each in Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and one each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura.
These seats fell vacant after the incumbents were elected to the Lok Sabha in the just-concluded parliamentary elections. Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs in states.
The Rajya Sabha vacancies came up in Maharashtra
after two sitting members – Piyush Goyal and Udayanraje Bhonsle (both from BJP) – were elected to the Lok Sabha.
When asked whether the key posts would go to one family, Bhujbal claimed that Ajit Pawar had not decided on Sunetra Pawar’s appointment.
The decision to field Sunetra Pawar was taken by the party’s core group. It was not decided by him (Ajit Pawar) alone. It was a collective decision, Bhujbal claimed.
When asked if he was disappointed at not being included in the Rajya Sabha polls, the minister shot back: Can you see it on my face? I have learned to respect collective decision-making and have been doing so for 57 years. Be it the Shiv Sena or the NCP, decisions are taken after discussions with people and not according to the will of one person.
The 76-year-old politician was a member of the Shiv Sena and Congress and joined the NCP when Sharad Pawar founded the party in June 1999. The NCP suffered a split when Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs, including Bhujbal, joined the Shiv Sena. -BJP government in July 2023 as ministers.
Earlier, Bhujbal, a prominent OBC leader, was keen to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Nashik, but NCP’s alliance partner Shiv Sena led by Prime Minister Eknath Shinde fielded its candidate from the constituency. The North Maharashtra seat was won by former CM Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT).
The NCP, the BJP and the Shiv Sena are members of the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: June 14, 2024 | 12:34 pm IST