New Delhi: Family battles are set to play out during the Maharashtra Assembly elections which are to be held on November 20. From Thackerays to Pawars, many families are in the poll fray. In some seats, the contest will be between father and daughters, uncle and nephew, and even husband and wife who will be fighting it out.
Uncle vs nephew
In the high-stakes Baramati seat, debutant Yugendra Pawar, the candidate of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) and also son of Shrinivas Pawar, will contest against his uncle and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, representing the NCP. Ajit Pawar has won the Baramati assembly seat a record seven times and also secured the Baramati parliamentary seat once.
This is the second time Baramati will be witnessing a Pawar vs Pawar fight. Earlier in 2024, NCP (SP) leader and Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule won against Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar in the Lok Sabha elections from the constituency.
Husband vs wife
In the Kannad Assembly seat in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Harshvardhan Jadhav, an Independent candidate, will be crossing swords with estranged wife Sanjana Jadhav, a Shiv Sena candidate. Harshvardhan is the son of the late Raibhan Jadhav, a former Congress MLA from Kannad. Sanjana is the daughter of Raosaheb Danve, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former Union minister.
In 2009, Harshvardhan secured the Kannad Assembly seat on Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) ticket. In 2014, he fought the polls on a Shiv Sena ticket and won. In 2018, he quit as an MLA in protest against government’s handling of the Maratha reservation agitation. In his affidavit, Harshvardhan said he has been “separated since 2019 but not yet divorced”, while Sanjana has mentioned ‘married’.
Other family contests
Rahul Aher, who represents BJP, is pitted against his brother Keda Aher, an independent, in Nashik’s Chandwad.
In the Sindhkhedraja constituency, Rajendra Shingne of the NCP (SP) is fighting against his niece Gayatri Shingne of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.
In Aheri constituency in Gadchiroli district, NCP minister Dharmarao Baba Atram and his daughter Bhagyashree Atram-Halgekar, the NCP (SP) candidate, are fighting against each other for the seat. It will be a triangular fight as Ambrishrao Atram, the nephew of the four-time sitting MLA DB Atram, is in the fray as an independent candidate.
NCP’s Prataprao Patil Chikhalikar is contesting against his brother-in-law, Shyamsunder Shinde, in the Loha-Kandhar seat.
