National

The Grapes Left On The Vine

Baramati: Sharad Pawar

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The Grapes Left On The Vine
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Going past the temple town of Jejuri and Morgaon, as you enter Baramati town, the landscape suddenly transforms: the benchmarks of development are scattered all over. The town showcases Sharad Pawar’s abilities and vision. For four interrupted decades, Pawar has represented Baramati—initially in the state legislature and later the Lok Sabha. Pawar is god here; the older Baramatikars worship him, the younger generation believes he can be their messiah. They would have preferred to vote for him again, but Pawar did not oblige. Daughter Supriya Sule is contesting this election.

The connect between the Pawars and Baramatikars is plain to see. Pawar knows families down to their last grandchild. The political opposition here, traditionally represented by the Kakade family and its loyalists, hardly count. Says Dilip Dhawan-Patil, farmer, Pawar devotee and NCP worker, "Supriyatai is considered elected. Saheb (Pawar) had almost 4.23 lakh (winning) margin last time, tai (sister) must get a five-lakh margin."

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Baramati town is replete with development anecdotes in which the Pawar family either is the focal point or gets the mandatory mention. There is Dynamix Dairy that packs milk products and fruit juices for the MNCs; there are steel processing and winery units that rank among the best in India; along the Baramati-Bhigwan road lie industrial units in 800 hectares of land developed by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation. There are grape orchards that run into kilometres, sugarcane fields that bear a good crop after crop thanks to the irrigation facilities. And, of course, there is Vidyanagari, the educational behemoth that Pawar developed under the aegis of Vidya Prathisthan. Legend goes that then Intel chief Craig Barret, visiting the Vidya Institute of Information Technology in 2005, was stunned and remarked, "Is this rural India?"

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Yet, Baramati town remains an oasis in Baramati LS constituency. It represents what is possible. Around this visible quotient of urbanised development lies a region where issues are still centred on bijli, sadak, paani.... Large areas are still drought-prone. In Purandar taluka, for example, people get water once in three days many times a year. "We want water, not a prime minister," says Kanchan Patil, succinctly criticising Pawar’s ambitions.

In Daund, sugar cooperative factories are struggling to stay open after the crushing season. In Mann and Hinjewadi, farmers who sold their land for a gargantuan IT park are staring at a bleak future—many have run out on the money they made on land, the promised jobs are nowhere on the horizon, the few who started businesses are braving the slowdown.

Shantaram Jagulkar, president of the newly-formed Earth Movers Association, wonders why Pawar didn’t "spread his vision" across the constituency, and develop the entire region as he did Baramati town and the villages around it.

Shorn of the political grandstanding, there is substance to the criticism against the Pawars. Baramati, the Lok Sabha constituency, while better off than many others in Maharashtra, is still some way off from the development benchmarks of the town.

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