In the 2019 assembly polls, Pankaja was defeated by cousin Dhananjay Munde of NCP at the Parli seat. With Dhananjay now in the Ajit Pawar camp of NCP, supporting Pankaja, her victory would have been easier on paper. But that may not be the case.
In Marathwada, a deep schism has erupted between the Maratha community and OBCs after Maratha leader Manoj Jarange Patil launched a hunger strike seeking that Marathas to be included in the OBC category. With there being legal hurdles, the state did not agree to it. Patil’s stir later triggered large-scale violence in the region with several politicians’ houses being torched. Patil, while not explicitly asking his community to vote against BJP, has urged the Marathas to oppose those who had not supported the quota issue – a very thin reference to BJP. The Maratha anger may singe BJP in Marathwada and Pankaja seems to be in the crosshairs of the Maratha wrath.
There are WhatsApp messages doing the rounds among Maratha community groups, claiming that the positions – from the Beed sitting MP to local government officials, doctors in the government hospital and police officers – were occupied mostly by members of the Vanjari (OBC) community.
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The messages listing the names of top politicians and government officials along with their caste are meant to show how the Maratha community, even though it is high in numbers in Marathwada, is going under-represented while OBCs and other communities are occupying the top posts at the expense of the Maratha community.
There are other accompanying messages asking Marathas to vote en bloc against BJP to show their community’s strength. The messages are seen as a sign of the deep polarisation between the Maratha and other communities over the issue of reservations.
“I have never seen such polarisation between Maratha and OBC communities in 60 years. There is so much animosity that people from these two communities do not want to be even civil with each other,” said Govardhan Rathod, a retired school principal who doesn’t belong to the Maratha or OBC communities.
The Vanjari community has around 3.5 lakh members in Beed, compared with the Maratha population of more than 6 lakhs.
In a shrewd move, Sharad Pawar has chosen Bajrang Sonwane, a Maratha, as the candidate of his faction of the NCP. He had lost the 2019 Lok Sabha polls against Pritam Munde by a margin of 1.68 lakh votes. While the margin might look high, he had polled 5 lakh votes when there was no Maratha polarisation. There are also 3 lakh Muslim voters in the constituency. While they were largely voting for Pankaja’s late father Gopinath Munde, this time they might shift to Sonavane.
“They have captured all positions. Out of the government teacher jobs in Beed, 80% have been captured by the OBC community. The Maratha community, in spite of being in a majority, here is not getting anything,” said a Maratha community member from Shirur-Kasar in Beed.
There have been several occasions where BJP and NCP (Ajit) leaders have been physically stopped from entering into Maratha-dominated villages to campaign for Pankaja.