Atul Ashok Howale 
Voting for the Maharashtra legislative assembly will be held on November 20.
In a contest unlike any other time before, this assembly election will see the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the Mahayuti alliances go head to head. Jayant Patil, the Maharashtra state president of the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar faction – a major party in the MVA – spoke to The Wire about key political and social issues ahead of the assembly elections.
Patil also discussed Ajit Pawar’s alleged involvement in the irrigation scam, the effects of caste politics, and the status of Maratha and Other Backward Class reservations in Maharashtra. He also addressed critical campaign issues for the MVA, including challenges faced by farmers, youth unemployment, and other pressing concerns.
The NCP’s influence is particularly strong in western Maharashtra, but the party is divided into two. The Mahayuti presents a significant challenge, with Ajit Pawar’s NCP currently aligned with it.
The following has been translated and transcribed by Manya Singh.
You have toured the entire state of Maharashtra. What do you think will be topics relevant to campaigning and on which the elections will be decided? What will be the strategy of the MVA?
Across Maharashtra, before the elections to the parliament, the atmosphere was such that the Bharatiya Janata Party would have got elected. But as soon as the elections started, the voters of Maharashtra took a different form. Out of 48 seats, 31 candidates were elected against BJP.
After that, when I toured the state, the only atmosphere that I saw was one in which people had high expectations.
If the MVA returns to power, many questions of development by farmers will be resolved by the MVA, especially by Mr. Sharad Pawar. That is what I believe.
That is why people have supported us in a big way. The result of this was that the government of the state led by Eknath Shinde and BJP, took many decisions out of fear.
They took about 1,000-1,500 quick decisions, out of which many, like distributing food, reflected that they were scared. Despite all their strength, the situation became such that if you asked for the moon, they would tell you, ‘It will take some time, but we will bring it.’
The most important issue that has come up often is the Ladli Behna Yojana. You have been the finance minister of Maharashtra for a long time. The way the government has announced the schemes, many have said that they have tried to appease voters. For example, they forgave toll tax in Mumbai, a few days back. Do you think these schemes will stop? Or will it continue after this elections?
What they have done is, after announcing the scheme, they adopted this way of distributing money among households where there are at least 3-4 women in a house. This is how they implemented the scheme.
In Maharashtra, the families below the poverty line, they need help first. Along with that, the women around the poverty line, even they need support. But the government did not think about this.
Out of fear, they announced the scheme in the budget.
The result was that, even before the budget was announced, they announced the scheme, but they did not think about the budget. There was no budget for the schemes.
Secondly, the money was diverted from other schemes. They have given the money till now. I was told that the money for November and December will be given in advance. They are trying to break the Model Code of Conduct. What does this mean? ‘Distribute as much money as possible, and then return upon getting elected.’
We are also thinking about this scheme. We will not make any mistake.
Also read: Who Has the Most to Lose in the Three Senas’ Race for the Marathi Vote?
When it comes to the manifesto, for the first time in Maharashtra, Mahavikas Aghadi is going to face the elections. Before this, they had fought the Lok Sabha elections together. The result was good, in favour of the MVA.
Will this manifesto belong to three different parties or will it be under one banner, like Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray), your party, and Congress?
All of us will be together. On 6th, Rahul Gandhi ji is coming to Mumbai. Pawar ji and Uddhav ji will also be there. All of us together will present our first five concerns before the people, and then the manifesto will be released everywhere in Maharashtra.
[Note: The MVA poll manifesto was released a day ago. This interview was taken before the release]
For the first time, two NCPs are going to contest the elections in Maharashtra. Who the real NCP is, we will possibly find out on November 23. In the Lok Sabha polls, you won eight out of 10 seats. Will we see the same performance here, or will there be some changes, according to you?
One thing is that, the real NCP is of Sharad Pawar. This has just been decided by the people of Maharashtra. The second thing is that, there is no need for the same question to come again and again in the Vidhan Sabha. The real NCP was Pawar sir, the founder. He is still alive and this party should remain with him.
In this country, it is wrong that Balasaheb Thackeray’s party was snatched from him, Pawar ji’s party was snatched from him, and everyone kept watching. And the judiciary also had to decide on time. Justice that comes late is injustice. So justice delayed is denied. Still, we went to the doors of the people, and the people helped us very well. Now we expect that in this Vidhan Sabha election also, despite all these freebies, our party will be well received.
I would also like to ask you about the issue of a symbol here. What problems did you face in the Lok Sabha polls? In a seat like Satara, your candidate was defeated by a few thousand votes, notably.
We have a seat in Dindori where a person who has a tuttari in his hand is our symbol. There was a mistake with labelling a trumpet a ‘tuttari’ and our candidate got 1,04,000 votes.
Similarly, in Satara, a ‘pipani’ which should not have been called a ‘tuttari’ was a symbol that got 37,000 votes.
So now, as we have requested, the State Election Commission has defined, translated and decided on the trumpet symbol.
It was thought that the candidate for the position of chief minister was going to be announced. Especially Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena said that the chief minister’s face should be decided.
On the other hand, if your party gets the highest number of seats, will you be the candidate for position of CM? We saw in the seat sharing discussions that the 85-85-85 formula was mentioned, but while your party is fighting for 85 seats, Congress has announced the highest number of candidates. Will Jayant Patil be the next CM?
It’s not about becoming the CM. The important issue is to remove the corrupt government in Maharashtra. And that’s why all the parties have come together on this issue. Those who have been extremely corrupt, BJP has also taken them along.
On the other hand, with Ajit Pawar, we can see that BJP compromises on anything. In India, this was not expected from BJP. Mr Modi also repeatedly speaks of a ‘clean’ government.
Taking all those people into the government is truly spoiling the BJP’s image.
Earlier, when Mr. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were in power, BJP was a clean party. Now, it is not like that. This is also the reason that in the whole country, BJP, which wanted to cross 400, has stopped at 240. I feel that this will also affect the Maharashtra elections.
You have raised the issue of corruption here. Earlier, within days of Prime Minister Modi mentioning the matter of MVA leaders being named in a Rs 70,000-crore scam, Ajit Pawar had joined the BJP government. A few days ago, in Tasgaon, in Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar said that his inquiry file had been signed by former party colleague RR Patil. What would you say about that?
Devendra Fadnavis called and told Ajit Pawar about this file, that is what Ajit Pawar said. The thing is that R.R. Patil is not alive today. It has been 9 years since he passed away. People of Maharashtra will not listen to rumours.
Second, Devendra Fadnavis called and told Ajit Pawar about this file. He was just an MLA of the opposition then. That’s when he called Ajit Pawar and told him of the file. This means that there was effort to pressurise Ajit Pawar. This is what we feel. This is what people of Maharashtra feel.
A few days ago, you said that Devendra Fadnavis blackmailed Ajit Pawar and because of that Ajit Pawar left the party and joined BJP.
I did not use the word blackmail. I said that after that incident, Ajit Pawar began trying to go to BJP.
The originating point is that he was told about this file. All these inquiries were being done and because of that, he was repeatedly saying that he has to go there. It was not that he left because he admired the BJP.
Also read: Maharashtra: No Party or Alliance Has a Commanding Statewide Presence in the Polls
NCP MLA Hasan Mushri was also accused of corruption. Now he has gone to BJP. Now that Ajit Pawar’s party is fighting against your party, can there be a division of votes, especially in western Maharashtra?
I don’t think people believe in Ajit Pawar. We have people’s trust and support, we are realising.
Reservations for the Maratha community and OBCs is the main issue. This was also seen in the Lok Sabha elections. How much will it affect this election? Has the government failed in giving reservation to Marathas? And if the government of Maha Vikas Aghadi comes, will Marathas get reservation?
The thing is that Eknath Shinde ji has talked to Maratha society. He has made some commitments. He has not honoured those commitments. We don’t know what the commitments are.
On the other hand, Devendra Fadnavis has been talking about the OBC community to Shinde ji. He has assured him certain things but we don’t know what the commitments are. We were expecting that before the Model Code of Conduct is in place, the government will decide and make these decisions clear in front of Maharashtra. But unfortunately, both of these communities have been disappointed by the government.
During the parliamentary elections, we had said that we will increase the percentage and accommodate everyone. This is our hope. We had given special importance to this in those elections and are still giving it importance.
The way communal violence has increased after the Mahayuti has come to power has been noticeable. In a city like Kolhapur, there has been communal violence. Nitish Rane keeps making communal remarks…
In Maharashtra, there is no lack of social leaders. Shahu, Phule and Ambedkar were there. Along with them, there were a few more people whose values are at the heart of Maharashtra.
But, in the elections, to draw votes, those who need polarisation will repeatedly try to create a situation. That is why, the MLA you took the name of, he has been roaming all over Maharashtra. He came to Islampur and created tension.
The way he speaks, minority society in the whole of Maharashtra knows that if BJP comes to power, it won’t do anything for them.