Sandesh Prabhudesai
9 September 1999
"I have always been fighting Narayan Rane and his Shiv Sena", says Sandesh
Parkar, the young graduated grocer. Despite being just a sarpanch of
Kankavli village panchayat, he has been now fighting the chief minister of
Maharashtra, one of the strongest seat of power in the country.
Sponsored by the Nationalist Congress Party, its president Sharad Pawar,
Maharashtra's former chief minister, has put in all the possible weight
behind Parkar to defeat Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's five month-old
favourite for the CM's post.
Coming before the electorate for the third consecutive time - this time in
his new 'avatar' as the chief minister, Rane however realises that it is
not a cakewalk for him this time, though the Shiv Sena is claiming to win
with thumping majority. Here, he has been projected as future Maharashtra CM.
"He is fooling you. Neither the Shiv Sena will come to power nor he will
continue as the chief minister", tells Prof. Gopal Dukhande, the Janata Dal
state secretary, to the semi-literate villagers, making inroads even in the
villages like Pendur, the Sena stronghold, to tell stories of Rane's misrule.
In fact Pendur itself is a victim of it, alleges Dukhande, an educationist
and Mumbai University's senate member. Replying to a curious villager's
question regarding around 22 acres of land of the village acquired for the
engineering college in Pendur itself, he tells them how Rane showed an ITI
building in Kankavli as the engineering college and started admissions,
when the college itself has not come up.
"But he has brought lots of developmental schemes for us", says Sudesh
Achrekar, a councillor of Malwan, a tiny and picturesque coastal town,
listing out the schemes for a polytechnic complex, tap water, roads, a
theatre, loan schemes for small mechanised fishing canoes as well as the
trawlers etc etc.
With the Kankavli taluka of the Malwan-Kankavli Assembly constituency
traditionally divided equally between the Congress and the Sena, Rane
appears to be concentrating more upon Malwan, the birthplace of his
forefathers. While maintaining his hold over most of the 69 villages, he
has also managed to win over all the anti-Sena councillors in his favour.
Though the Malwan nagar parishad elected 13 out of 17 Congress-sponsored
councillors by defeating Sena-sponsored candidates, both the ruling and
opposition groups are today standing strongly behind Rane. "He will sweep
the polls here", claims Achrekar, Sena's campaign in-charge of the coastal
city of Malwan.
"Not the workers, only these leaders have joined hands with Rane overnight.
The city would keep its anti-Sena tradition even this time", says Nitin
Walke, the young hotelier and city's Janata Dal secretary.
He claims that all the 13 councillors changed their plan to support the NCP
last minute, probably because the chief minister has systematically trapped
them in some deal where they are involved. "They had otherwise brought even
NCP's posters and banners from Mumbai", he informs.
Besides these manipulations, the NCP along with the Janata Dal (Secular)
and the RPI, is also fighting the Sena's 'shakha' network spread out in all
the villages. "We are also fighting his image and the money power he has",
admits Walke.
"More than that is the muscle power he has been using", says Nandu Sawant,
one-time Rane's close associate having a criminal background, who has been
fighting as the Congress (I) candidate. He has been making issue of
Shridhar Naik murder case, in which both Rane and Sawant were the accused.
To make the people feel about the alleged terror spread by Rane, Sawant
now moves with an official armed escort, under the pretext that he was put
behind the bars under false charges when he contested ZP polls recently. "I
thus lost it only by 135 votes".
Parkar, Rane's main rival, however firmly believes that the chief minister
could be easily defeated if the Congress was not divided. "I would still
defeat him, provided Sawant does not secure too many votes", admits the NCP
candidate.
Jayanand Mathkar, election agent of Madhu Dandvate for the Lok Sabha polls,
however is frank enough to admit that Rane would win the seat for the third
consecutive time, snatching this traditionally Congress seat. But it is
also a fact that Sena's margin of 21,700 in the last Assembly polls came
down to mere 8200 in last year's Lok Sabha polls.
It is also a fact that the pro-Pawar young brigade has made the chief
minister run on his toes in his constituency from village to village and
house to house. As the female voter is over 55 per cent here, even Rane's
wife is now seen campaigning here, holding 'mahila melawas'.
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