Kalmadi may sail through in Pune seat

MANDATE 2004

In the Pune Lok Sabha constituency Congress candidate Suresh Kalmadi may be officially contesting against anti-corruption crusader and independent candidate Arun Bhatia and the BJP's Pradip Rawat.

The contest will, however, be decided by the support Kalmadi is able to garner from bitter foe turned political alliance partner, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar.

Till the Congress and NCP forging a pre-poll alliance in Maharashtra for the Lok Sabha polls, Kalmadi had been reputed to be a former aide of Pawar. But he is now not exactly the NCP's favourite politician.

While this rivalry came to the fore in 1997-1998 and during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, this time round the animosity shared by the duo is likely to be buried, thanks to political realities.

Simply put, the Congress needs Sharad Pawar to assist Kalmadi in his bid to get elected from Pune. And in July 2004, when six Rajya Sabha seats get vacated, the NCP will need Congress support to nominate at least three or four of its partymen to the upper house on the issue.

Kalmadi may, therefore, sail through from this constituency with NCP support, failing which he along with Congress stalwart Vijay Darda will surely lobby hard against the NCP's aspirations in the July Rajya Sabha nominations. The duo had similarly worked against Pawar in 1997 and 1998.

According to well informed political observers, the Kalmadi-Pawar feud was sparked off by the growing clout being wielded by Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar in the Pune belt, especially his proximity to the ongoing Maharashtra Krishna Valley Irrigation Development Corporation (MKVIDC) projects in the region.

Kalmadi, who till then was considered a close aide of Sharad Pawar, feeling his home turf threatened by the junior Pawar, had frequent run-ins with Ajit Pawar before the NCP chief took up the cudgels on his nephew's behalf.

It is only the outwardly nicety of being political alliance partners that keeps the Pawar-Kalmadi fight from breaking out in the open all over again till the counting of votes is completed on May 13, 2004.