BJP's neutral stand helped Suman on Tasgaon poll turf

KOLHAPUR: The record margin with which NCP's Suman Patil won the Tasgaon bypoll only proved that it was a cakewalk for her to sail through her maiden electoral venture, riding high on the sentiments followed by the death of her husband and former deputy chief minister RR Patil and the neutral stand adopted by Sanjay Patil, the BJP MP from Sangli.
Sanjay, the political rival of RR during the last 20 years, MP had aligned with the BJP's youth leader, Swapnil Patil, who contested against Suman but faced a humiliating defeat.
The efforts of senior NCP leaders to convince all the parties to not field their candidate against Suman failed after Swapnil rebelled against BJP leaders' directions to stay away from the fray. Till the last couple of days during the campaign, the NCP leaders were simmering because of the BJP leaders's clandestine support to Swapnil, making him a strong contender. However, the BJP leaders later gave in to the pressure of its state leadership that didn't want to invite the ire of NCP president Sharad Pawar. The sitting MP even went ahead meeting his supporters and appealing them to vote for Suman during the final days in the run-up to the day of voting.
Sources said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis called Sanjay twice, convincing him not to go against the party's decision. Also, the state president of BJP had called up Sanjay to discuss the possibility of Swapnil's win. But owing to the pressure from the supporters, Sanjay decided to remain neutral and not support anyone.
"I fought two elections against RR unsuccessfully and this time I didn't find it morally right to field a candidate or support any other candidate against the NCP. I met senior party leaders many times, informing them about the rebel candidate," Sanjay told TOI.
Senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, while announcing Suman's candidature, had said the opposition (BJP) should not do any mischief by fielding or supporting any candidate against the NCP.
When the election was announced, the NCP satraps pitched in for Suman's candidature to keep the party base intact in the constituency. There were fears that the BJP may take advantage of RR's absence to support any candidate having potential to increase the party's presence in the constituency. Mohan Javalekar, an NCP supporter from Tasgaon, said, "The neutral stand of the BJP leadership helped us get the huge margin. Besides, since it was the first election in the absence of our leader (RR Patil), many of the party's senior leaders campaigned and assured us to continue the work left undone by him. This helped us a lot."
Smita Patil, the daughter of RR who anchored the entire campaign, said, "We talked about the work done by my father and his dreams for the constituency. We will have the challenges regarding the development work and will fulfill the promises."