MumbaiMaharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra on Thursday filed her nomination papers as the NCP candidate for the upcoming Assembly elections, days after her defeat in the Baramati Lok Sabha polls.
Incidentally, when Sunetra Pawar filed her nomination at Vidhan Bhavan in south Mumbai, apart from NCP leaders, no politicians from the BJP and Shiv Sena, allies of Ajit Pawar’s ruling Mahayuti party, were present.
The filing of nominations was attended by new Communist Party leaders including Senator Praful Patel, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, party state president and Lok Sabha elected Sunil Tatkare and Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Narhari Jirwal.
Bhujbal said he was keen to contest the Rajya Sabha elections but had no qualms about Sunetra Pawar’s nomination as it was a “collective party decision”.
In the recently concluded Indian Lok Sabha elections, Sunetra Pawar lost in the Baramati constituency in Pune district where her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, won for the fourth consecutive time.
“The NCP has decided to field Sunetra Pawar for the Rajya Sabha elections. I was also keen to contest the elections but party leaders in a meeting on Wednesday night finalised her name,” Bhujbal said.
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat has notified 10 vacant seats in the Upper House — two each in Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and one each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura.
These seats were vacated when incumbents were elected to the House of Representatives in the just-concluded congressional elections. Senators are elected by state legislatures in each state.
Rajya Sabha seats vacant in Maharashtra
This comes after two sitting MPs, Piyush Goyal and Udayanraje Bhonsle (both from the BJP), were elected to the Lower House of the Rajya Sabha.
Asked whether key posts were being given to one family member, Bhujbal asserted that it was not Ajit Pawar’s decision to appoint Sunetra Pawar.
“The decision to field Sunetra Pawar was taken by a core group of the party. It was not his (Ajit Pawar) alone. It was a collective decision,” Bhujbal alleged.
When asked if he was disappointed over not contesting the Rajya Sabha elections, the minister retorted, “Can you see it in my expression? I have learnt to respect collective decision-making and have been practising it for the last 57 years. Whether it be the Shiv Sena or the NCP, decisions are taken after discussion with people and not on the will of one man.”
The 76-year-old politician has been associated with the Shiv Sena and the Indian National Congress and joined the NCP when Sharad Pawar formed it in June 1999. The NCP split in July 2023 when Ajit Pawar and eight other state legislators, including Bhujbal, joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government as ministers.
Earlier, Bhujbal, a strong OBC leader, was keen to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Nashik but NCP’s alliance partner, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, fielded a candidate from the constituency. The North Maharashtra seat was won by former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT).
The NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena are the parties that make up the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
