Trailing Pawar's Audi-ssey

10

Tweet

Sharad Pawar looked extremely relaxed last Friday as he waved to supporters from the car window. The furore surrounding his race for Prime Ministership didn't seem to perturb him as he leisurely drove past the sugarcane fields in rural western Maharashtra, moving from one public meeting to another in tiny towns from Phaltan to Widni to Akluj, in his steel-grey Audi - the preferred luxury vehicle of politicians these days - its temperature-controlled interiors perfect for the long road trips that are gaining momentum this election season.

Ensconced comfortably in the leather seats, Pawar was in distinctly good humour as he fielded questions from the journalist interviewing him in the car with unhurried, ambiguous responses like 'it will depend on the coalition partners', 'if the number of seats is right' etc. I was in the car too at the time, and the other journalist and I were lightly admonished about the pronunciation of Madha, the constituency he is campaigning from this time. "You people from Mumbai always say MHADA (the city housing authority) instead of Madha". The car was travelling at around 20 kmph, to avoid the news camera from shaking too much. Once every few minutes, Pawar would stop conversation to get down from the vehicle and greet villagers who would collect in small clusters, all along the way with garlands. In this idyllic setting, Delhi almost seemed quite distant.

The effusiveness of the farmers was plain, but to my surprise, Pawar would stop at every point, even if there were just 9 or 10 people waiting, get down, and exchange a few words with them. Their adoration for their son was plain - Pawar has never lost an election in Baramati since 1967. Besides being a primary centre for sugar and milk production, Pawar has brought to this taluka various industries, from automobile manufacturing (the largest three-wheeler manufacturing unit in the country is here) to textile, education (his 156-acre Vidyanagari campus has 16 institutes, 12 schools, 6 colleges, hostels, and 14,000 students), wineries, diverse agro businesses, oil refineries, packaging, and most importantly, percolation tanks - 289 percolation tanks, or catchment areas, set up by Pawar over the last four decades, have ensured large parts of the taluk are not hit by drought even in times of famine.

The town of Baramati itself, with 60,000 inhabitants, now invites technocrats, technicians and experts from diverse fields, much to the delight of the more urban residents here. Every town in Maharashtra is known for one or two commodities that drive its primary economy. Nasik is known for its grapes, Nagpur for oranges, Sangli for sugar, Vidarbha for cotton, Dahanu for chikoo. Baramati's transformation has occurred because it is not dependent on one commodity - it is now known for all of the above and much more, mainly because even the smallest farmer here has diversified into more than one business. If the sugar crop fails, he still has a successful poultry or milk or sericulture business to see him and his family through. Today, barring the big cities, rustic Baramati is believed to be the most prosperous town in the state of Maharashtra.

A critic recently said, "Sharad Pawar was never an agriculture minister of India, he was always the agriculture minister of western Maharashtra." because of Pawar's blinkered approach to his own constituency that gets him elected each time. But an agriculture expert who works in Baramati told me, "It's very easy to criticise Pawar but you don't see the difference he has made to the life of smallest of the small farmer here."

This year, for the first time, Pawar hands over the reins of his constituency in Baramati to daughter Supriya Sule - his only child and clearly, his successor. He himself will contest out of Madha, where he is assured a victory by predecessor Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, also the state rural development minister.

As Pawar rolls out of another public meeting at the hamlet of Widni in his new constituency, he waves out at the villagers saying, "Madha mee parat nahi yenaar, theek aahe na?" ("I'm not going to come back here to Madha, ok?") For years, he has never campaigned in his own constituency more than a single day, because it makes no difference to the vote he is going to get.