assembly-elections

Updated: Oct 15, 2019 02:59 IST

For the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls, former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan is the sole Congress candidate in Satara district. Vinod Sharma caught up with him in the middle of his campaign to retain the Karad (South) seat he won in 2014. Excerpts from the interview:

Karad is a seat the Congress has never lost. Will you keep up the tradition?

We’d certainly maintain the winning trend. The dismal five-year record of the state government (led by the Bharatiya Janata Party) is helping us in amplifying popular discontent. The fight here this time is between the Congress and the BJP. The rebel Congressman who stood second last time isn’t in the fray. His son’s contesting but that isn’t the same thing. Many NCP leaders have joined my campaign; we’re fighting shoulder to shoulder. We paid the price in 2014 for contesting against each other. This time we are together.

How confident are you of exploiting the BJP’s anti-incumbency in the face of its strong nationalistic pitch that can overwhelm other issues?

We are trying to focus on the economy, plummeting growth rate, joblessness, bank frauds, farmers’ suicides and all. But that campaign is yet to pick up. The other theme is the ruling party’s agenda to finish the Congress and the NCP. After (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief) Mohan Bhagwat’s advise, they aren’t using Amit Shah’s Congress-mukt slogan. But the thought, the underlying theme, remains unaltered. All coercive means are being used to wipe out the Opposition. It’s what the CM (Devendra Fadnavis) calls Sam, Daam, Dand, Bhed.....they’re buying up, threatening and putting our leaders behind bars.

Unlike in 2014, this time there’s a NCP-Congress alliance in Maharashtra. Will that improve your aggregate and individual performances?

We expect to win the entire Satara district and the Lok Sabha seat where there is a by-election caused by the defection of the sitting NCP MP Udayanraje Bhosale to the BJP. There’s a fight in a couple of assembly seats but we expect to win most of them. Satara historically is a Congress-minded area which now is an NCP stronghold. It was one of the three districts besides UP’s Ballia and Bengal’s 24-Parganas that declared Independence from the British. A parallel government was formed. That’s the history and the political culture of Satara. The late YB Chavan hailed from Karad and was the founder of modern Maharashtra. A major factor that’ll ensure our victory is the money laundering case brought to coerce (NCP chief) Sharad Pawar. That has caused a huge backlash. The maximum public outrage is in this part of western Maharashtra comprising Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur.

But in Satara, the descendants of Chhatrapati Shivaji are the BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha and assembly seats...

Satara is the Maratha heartland where Shivaji ruled, where BR Ambedkar studied and from where (Jyotirao) Phule hailed. The area had been Maharashtra’s important thought-leader with Karad at the heart of it. It’s also here that the cooperative movement took shape. The 1999 Congress split that led to the formation of the NCP caused big-time damage. As we fought against each other, the BJP could make inroads. Lately, leaders have left the NCP and the Congress in droves. The real question is whether our workers and voters have followed them.

How big is the Sharad Pawar persona? Does it help the alliance?

He without doubt is the tallest leader today by age, seniority and political experience. He would remain a quintessential Congressman who, like Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool (Congress), has left the party but hasn’t abandoned the Congress tag. We’ve worked together in these elections in deciding candidates, dividing seats and running the campaign. The only thing that isn’t common between our parties is the leadership. (Currently) there’s uncertainty in the Congress about the leadership. But there’s certainty in the NCP about the leadership. It is the lack of clarity on the post-Pawar scenario that has caused the desertions it faced.

In a nutshell, what’s your forecast for western Maharashtra that accounts for 70-odd seats in the 288-member assembly?

The region has 72 seats. We should do fairly well though the BJP is writing us off, saying we’d only get 35-40 seats in the entire state. But the situation on the ground is different. The key turning point in these polls will be the way the Satara MP resigned four months after being elected on the NCP ticket. He took voters for granted. There’s huge anger against him and the BJP to which he defected. As there was anti-incumbency of 10 years against him, we all worked very hard to make him win the third time. He has since spurned us and his voters. If the BJP loses Satara that’s deep inside western Maharashtra, it’ll be a sign of the Opposition’s revival.

Apart from what you call popular anger against defections, coercive or voluntary, what other issues are dominating?

The BJP is desperate to make the nullification of Article 370 (that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir) the main point of debate. Amit Shah is repeating ad nauseam the arguments he made in his speech in Parliament. The people aren’t swayed by the propaganda. It isn’t an issue that touches lives here. It’s a ruse to divert attention from the government’s failure to address livelihood problems. There’s a feeling that they have lost control of the economy. Withdrawing Rs 1.76 lakh crore from the RBI funds was like selling family jewels to run the household. We in the Opposition are trying to focus on the economic crisis that impacts all people.

What’s the response ?

The people are listening. It hasn’t yet become the central theme, nor has the negation of Article 370 the BJP is hyping up. That is why these elections may be fought on extremely localised issues.