Congress party waits for Rahul’s Pune visit

Pune: At the Congress party office in Deccan, party workers are waiting with bated breath for the arrival of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, scion of the country’s most celebrated political family, to perform magic on April 15.

Vikas Deshpande, Congress coordinator, believes that “the caste-wise division of the city — Marathas, Dalits and Muslims — is favourable to our secular candidate. They have consistently voted for us since 1957 except in a couple of occasions.”

He also thinks there is no anger against the UPA government. “The anti-Emergency anger during 1977 was of high altitude,” he says, “but such type of anger is not there now.”

Another positive factor in Maharashtra, he thinks, is that “both the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance partners have genuinely come together and are working systematically, unlike the differences that were overplayed by the media in 2009.”

Moreover, Congress candidate, Vishwajeet Patangrao Kadam, 33, son of state minister Patangrao Kadam, who also runs educational institutions, will be a big draw with the youth, he is convinced. Of course, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) may take away some section of the youth, he thinks, which is a good thing for the Congress.

What will be damaging to the BJP is the presence of MNS, whose chief Raj Thackeray had assured BJP leader Nitin Gadkari that he would not field his candidates wherever the BJP was contesting. But Anil Shirole, close to BJP leader Gopinath Munde (and not to Gadkari), was selected for Pune, and MNS fielded former MLA Deepak Paygude, who runs his Lok Seva Bank, Lok Seva Kitchen and Lok Seva Bazaar. In all likelihood, he will eat into BJP votes and the Congress could win by sheer default in this interesting multi-cornered constituency.

Numbers

Pune polling day: April 17

Total voters in Pune: 1.83 million in the six assembly segments of Vadgaonsheri, Shivajinagar, Kothrud, Parvati, Pune Cantonment and Kasba Peth.

Nearly 53,000 new voters added to list.

Candidates: 2009 Lok Sabha elections

Congress: Suresh Kalmadi: 279,973 — 38.12% of votes

BJP: Anil Shirole: 254,272 — 34.62%

MNS: Ranjeet Shirole: 75,930 — 10.33%

BSP: D.S. Kulkarni: 62,981 — 8.57 %

Turnout — 734,370

Candidates: 2014 Lok Sabha elections

Congress: Dr Vishwajeet Patangrao Kadam