Vadgaon: In former NCP stronghold, BJP defends seat against political foes and friends

Jagdish Mulik and Sunil Tingre.

The NCP is trying its best to wrest Vadgaonsheri — traditionally a bastion of the Sharad Pawar-led party — from the BJP in this year’s Assembly elections. The constituency, which had chosen NCP leaders in both state and civic elections for years, switched over to the BJP in the 2014 Assembly polls.

The NCP has fielded Sunil Tingre against the BJP candidate, sitting MLA Jagdish Mulik.

Mulik had beaten Tingre, then a Shiv Sena candidate, and leaders of other major political parties in the 2014 Assembly elections.

The BJP has tried to expand its base in the largely-urban constituency by roping in local leaders of NCP and other parties. Vadgaonsheri, which includes Alandi Road and Nagar Road, has a cosmopolitan population and a large number of non-Marathi residents, who live in the defence establishments located here.

One of the fastest growing areas in the city, Vadgaonsheri has both information technology parks and swanky hotels, as well as the Pune airport. The area is often riddled with traffic jams and the Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS) on Alandi Road and Nagar Road were set up to resolve this issue. The BRTS on Nagar Road, however, is no longer in use due to work on the Metro project.

The area also has a slum pocket that lacks basic facilities.

The most urgent issue for local residents, however, is water shortage. A project undertaken during the erstwhile Congress-NCP regime, to draw water from Bhama Askhed dam and supply it to the area, has been stalled repeatedly due to protests by residents of villages where the water supply line was being laid. The Pune Municipal Corporation has now set a deadline to make the project operational from January next year.

During the seat-sharing talks in the Mahayuti, the RPI(A) had sought the seat from the BJP and Shiv Sena, as party leader and Pune deputy mayor Siddarth Dhende was keen to contest from it. The BJP’s refusal to part with Vadgaonsheri, or any Assembly seat in Pune, has disappointed its alliance partners. RPI(A)’s local leaders have expressed their unwillingness to campaign for the BJP candidate.

source https://cvrnewsdirect.com/vadgaon-in-former-ncp-stronghold-bjp-defends-seat-against-political-foes-and-friends/