Mumbai:

The Nationalist Congress party on Saturday announced that Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar from Baramati Lok Sabha Lok Sabha seat, competing against Supriya Sule, Pawar’s sister-in-law and daughter of Sharad Pawar from Pawar’s hometown.

Sunetra Pawar’s first reaction was that this was a lucky day for her.

Hours after the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) announced the first list of five candidates for the Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra NCP unit president Sunil Tatkar Sunil Tatkare announced her candidacy.

The NCP(SP) has retained Supriya Sule from Baramati and fielded Nilesh Lanke from Ahmednagar constituency, who has Ajit Pawar’s camp shifted sides.

Sunil Tatkare said the struggle in Baramati was a battle of ideology and principles, not a family struggle.

“This is a lucky day for me. I thank Narendra Modiji, Amit Shah and all the leaders of Mahayutthi (Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP) Think I am capable of contesting the elections,” Sunetra Pawar told a Marathi news channel.

Asked about the stand-off with Supriya Sule, she said: “Voters have taken the battle into their own hands.”

Earlier in the day, Shiv Sena leader Vijay Shivtare, a fierce critic of Ajit Pawar, decided not to contest the upcoming elections with Baramati, abandoning his militant stance.

Led by Sunetra Pawar, a novice in electoral politics, Baramati will witness a Pawar vs. Pawar battle, the first since the party founded by veteran Pawar split in 1999 first.

The real fight is between Ajit Pawar and his uncle Sharad Pawar. Ajit Pawar joined the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government in July last year, while his uncle Sharad Pawar is a cunning and battle-hardened politician.

The Baramati Lok Sabha constituency consists of six assembly districts: Baramati town, Indapur, Daundar, Purandhar, Bhor and Kadawathra.

Sharad Pawar has won this seat many times in the past. He has a solid voter base and enjoys enormous goodwill among his people.

In the 2019 elections, Supriya Sule scored a hat-trick and won the Baramati constituency and became the candidate of the National Congress Party.

Even before Sunetra Pawar’s name was officially announced, she had started campaigning and meeting various social groups.

To defend his turf, Sharad Pawar recently visited the family of Congress MP Sangram Topte and met his old rival father Anantrao Topte.

The NCP (SP), part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which also includes the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Congress, will contest 10 seats in Maharashtra, which has submitted its vote to the Lok Sabha 48 MPs were sent.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)