SAMBHAJI BRIGADE JUMPS INTO POLL FRAY

SAMBHAJI BRIGADE JUMPS INTO POLL FRAY As the Maratha uprising takes centre stage, hitherto a social organisation, Sambhaji Brigade has sprouted political ambitions and announced its participation in the forthcoming civic polls next year. It will be contesting the civic elections at Pune, Pimpri- Chinchwad and Mumbai. In a press conference held on Thursday, the Brigade, which

registered itself as a political party on November 30, 2016, at Nagpur, gave out its plans for Pune. “Besides Pune, we will also contest in Mumbai and Pimpri-Chinchwad,” Prashant Dhumal, city unit chief of the Brigade told Mirror. Of course, the Brigade is shrugging off any speculation that their political plans have been inspired by droves of people joining the Maratha rallies in various parts of the state. “We had announced our political aspirations last year. Maratha leaders in different political parties failed to fulfil Maratha demands on education, reservation and other issues, so we felt compelled to step in to address these aspects,” Dhumal.

Setting down its agenda, the Brigade members talked of pushing through the Shiv Shrusti (a museum essaying Shivaji’s life). It will also pursue getting the country’s first girl’s school — Savitribai Phule School at Budwar Peth — declared as a national monument. “We will also fight for the city’s mundane needs like regular water supply, improving quality of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)- run schools to stem the depleting enrolments, address the city’s unrelenting garbage problems and ensure hassle- free implementation of the Metro project,” Dhumal added.

The entry of a Maratha-specific party should have quaked some of the old political brigade that have courted the Maratha vote bank for long. “For long, the Maratha votes were loyal to the Congress. However, when Sharad Pawar pulled out of the party in 1978, the community’s allegiance got split between different parties, including Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena. Today, NCP is the Maratha face. Now, if the Brigade plays out its political agenda with success, it could upstage the other parties,” noted Prakash Pawar, assistant professor in Political Science at one of the city’s most prominent colleges.

About 40 per cent of the city’s voter base are Marathas. Of the 144 corporators in PMC, 76 are Marathas, with NCP contributing to most of them. The ratio of the Maratha vote bank split is estimated as 50 per cent being with NCP, 25 per cent with Congress, 15 per cent with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena combine and the remaining 10 per cent is distributed between MNS and other smaller parties.

As Sambhaji Brigade takes its babysteps into politics, the other parties are putting up a brave front, contending that they are not feeling the heat yet. “It is just another new political party entering the fray. We don’t need to fear it. Ours is a secular party and no special treatment is accorded to any community or caste. We have worked our developmental agenda well and do not plan on making caste-based emotional pitches to win the municipal elections,” insisted Ashok Rathi, working president of NCP’s city unit.

“It is a democracy and we cannot stop anyone from forming a party and contesting elections. Congress has people from all castes and classes. I don’t see any problem in their announcement,” said Ramesh Bagwe of Congress’s city unit. Similarly, Shiv Sena’s city unit chief Vinayak Nimhan claimed immunity to Brigade’s entry. “It does not affect us. We participated in the Maratha morcha. I don’t think the response the rallies got will convert into votes in the civic elections. We are being approached by workers from other parties too, and we have announced our plans to start our process from January 1, 2017,”