Pune/Mumbai: Congress has staked its claim to the Pawar family’s traditional seat of Baramati after the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) made it clear that it will not field a candidate against deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar for the April 23 bypoll. Sunetra Pawar, who is the NCP president, will file her nomination on April 6 for the bye-election, party sources said on Friday.Congress state chief Harshwardhan Sapkal on Thursday held online interviews with the aspirants for the Baramati seat. “We have received six applications for Baramati and four for the Rahuri seat so far. If NCP (SP) is not contesting these seats, our party will, and we are firm about it,” he said.The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Pawar’s husband Ajit Pawar, who was the deputy chief minister at the time, in a plane crash on Jan 28.Sunetra Pawar is currently a Rajya Sabha member. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde are expected to be present when she files her nomination papers, NCP sources said.Ajit Pawar was an eight-time MLA from home turf Baramati.Senior BJP member Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Friday made an emotional appeal to Congress, claiming that late Ajit Pawar was a long-time colleague of the Congress and respecting the relation, the party should not put up a candidate against his wife, Sunetra.He said, “Nearly 75% of Ajit Pawar’s political career was associated with the Congress. I appeal to its leadership for consideration and not put up any candidate in Baramati. We have no problems if they nominate a candidate for the Rahuri seat but our appeal to all parties is to help Sunetra win unopposed.” BJP MLA Shivajirao Kardile passed away last Oct, necessitating the bypoll for the Rahuri assembly seat. NCP (SP), which had contested the Baramati seat against Ajit Pawar in the 2024 assembly poll, announced that it will not put up a candidate this time. Its members are not happy with the Congress’s stand to contest the bypoll in Baramati.Shiv Sena (UBT), the other MVA partner, said that the alliance partners will take a call on contesting the bypoll but did not object to Congress’s preparations. (With PTI inputs)
