Mumbai: After a debilitating electoral loss and a hiatus, Parth Pawar, the son of Maharashtra deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar, is back in political action, helping his father strengthen the party’s base in their home district, Pune.
Parth has been visiting local party offices in the district, interacting with workers, the party’s former corporations and members of the general public, multiple NCP leaders told ThePrint.
“As Ajit dada’s son, Parth Pawar has involved himself in backroom management and party building. He is paying attention to the party’s booth-level structures, strengthening booth committees,” Dilip Mohite, an MLA from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, representing the Khed Alandi assembly constituency in Pune district, told ThePrint.
Parth had unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Maval parliamentary constituency. He was the first member of the Pawar family to lose an election.
Party members ThePrint spoke to said that while Parth used to occasionally attend meetings of the NCP’s Pune unit in the past 2-3 years, his involvement has increased since the party’s split and he has especially stepped up efforts now, closer to elections.
The NCP split in July 2023 when Ajit Pawar walked out of the Sharad Pawar-led party, rebelling against his uncle with a majority of the party’s MLAs in tow. Nephew Pawar, MLA from the Pawar turf of Baramati in the Pune district, then joined hands with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to be a part of the government.
ThePrint reached Parth Pawar for comment via calls and messages. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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Meeting party workers, former corporators
Chetan Tupe, a Pune district MLA from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, told ThePrint that Parth has been visiting local offices of the party across the district, meeting former corporators, booth-level workers and even the constituents.
“He plans to cover all assembly segments in Pune. He has been involved in party building, asking booth-level workers about whether they have any issues, intervening to get those issues resolved. Considering there have been no elections to the municipal corporation, he has also been meeting former NCP corporators from the Pune civic body to understand whether the civic administration is taking up issues flagged by them,” Tupe said.
The terms of around 24 civic bodies in Maharashtra, including corporations of major cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pimpri Chinchwad, Kalyan Dombivli, Nashik, Nagpur, have lapsed over the past three years. There have been no fresh elections to these municipal corporations and the bodies are run by administrators.
So far, Parth has visited party offices and interacted with workers in Pune’s areas such as Wanwadi, Kesarwadi, Hadapsar, Sasane Nagar this month. On 6 January, he visited the city’s Hazrat Ma Babajaan Dargah and the Bhavani Mata mandir in Bhavani Peth. The same day, he visited the Kamla Nehru Hospital and interacted with doctors there.
Since the split in the NCP, Parth has been accompanying his father Ajit to major rallies, and intermittently visiting party offices in areas such as Pune, Thane and Palghar.
The only Pawar to lose an election
Parth used to be on the fringes of political activity till 2019 when he decided to contest the parliamentary election from Maval.
When he expressed his desire to contest the election from Maval, Sharad Pawar was himself looking to contest from the Madha Lok Sabha constituency, considered to be a stronghold of the NCP, which was then undivided.
After Parth insisted on contesting, Sharad Pawar bowed out of the race saying he did not believe too many members from one family should contest the election. His daughter Supriya Sule was anyway a contender from the Baramati Lok Sabha seat, which she has held since 2009. Maval, held by the undivided Shiv Sena, was not considered to be a definite NCP stronghold. Ultimately, the NCP lost the Maval as well as the Madha seat.
In the 2019 assembly election, Rohit Pawar, another grand nephew of Sharad Pawar, contested and won from the Karjat Jamkhed constituency and eventually, Parth faded into the background within the undivided NCP.
A Pune-based NCP leader said there has also been speculation within the party about Parth contesting this year’s election, but there has been no official discussion within the party yet.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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