Suresh Kalmadi's announcement that he would support the Congress's candidate in Pune in the forthcoming general election has come as a huge relief to the party. But his backing may not be enough to offset a range of challenges that the party faces in what is likely to be a fiercely contested battle in Maharashtra's cultural capital.
Kalmadi, 69, the current Lok Sabha representative for Pune, has been elected three times from this constituency. But the Congress, reeling from a series of scams, could not possibly have given him a ticket after suspending him from the party in August 2011. This followed his arrest on charges of corruption and cheating during his tenure as the head of the committee that organised the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010.
But Kalmadi, who was released on bail in January 2012, nevertheless went into a sulk after the Congress on March 21 picked Vishwajeet Kadam, 33, who heads the party's youth wing in Maharashtra, to contest the Pune seat. Kalmadi, reports said, was bargaining with the Congress to rehabilitate him in return for his support. The party is said to have promised him a Rajya Sabha seat as soon as he manages a clean chit from the courts. That is a win-win deal for Kalmadi and the Congress party. If the scam-tainted politician had turned rebel and contested against Kadam, defeat would have awaited both.
"Kalmadi's support gives the Congress's candidate a fighting chance in Pune," said Prakash Bal, a political analyst in Thane. "Kalmadi has a big support base in the Pune Congress and this group will help Kadam organisationally. But if perceptions about the Congress's misgovernance get crystallised in voters' minds over the next month, then even this won't help."
Voting in Pune, an automobiles and information technology hub as well as the seat of Marathi high culture, is to take place on April 24. With 48 Lok Sabha seats out of 543, Maharashtra is crucial for any party seeking to come to power at the national level.
Born in 1944, Kalmadi, a Tulu-speaking Brahmin, grew up and studied in Pune. He studied at the city's Fergusson College and then at the National Defence Academy nearby. After graduating from the Academy, he served as a pilot in the Indian Air Force between 1964 and 1972, receiving several medals.
He began his political career in 1977 by heading the Congress's youth wing in Pune. A year later he took charge of the youth wing for the whole state. Over the years, he also became involved in civic issues and with the Pune municipal corporation. Besides working within the party, Kalmadi also began organising large events in Pune. He expanded the Pune Ganesh Festival, started the Pune International Marathon in 1983, began the Pune Festival in 1989 and brought the National Games to the city in 1994.
"Through these events, Kalmadi expanded his sports and cultural networks," said Sridhar Loni, a senior Pune-based journalist at the Maharashtra Times, a Marathi newspaper. "He acquired a reputation of being someone who could do big things. But he helped a lot of others to grow as well. His supporters know that there is corruption, but believe he has been made a scapegoat; that if he is guilty, then his higher-ups are also responsible."
When Kalmadi was released on bail and returned to Pune two years ago after spending 10 months in Delhi's Tihar Jail, his supporters in Pune welcomed him by bursting firecrackers, a testimony to the goodwill he still had in the city. Money power is said to be an important reason for his hold among political workers in the city, and that's another reason why his turning rebel would have hurt the Congress badly.
Yet, despite Kalmadi's backing, the Congress faces several challenges, both at the party and candidate levels. Although Pune has traditionally been a Congress bastion, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party both at the Centre and in Maharashtra, also has a strong presence in the city. It has won the seat twice, once in 1991 and again in 1999.
Moreover, Kalmadi's own victory margins have been steadily dropping. In 2009, it was 3.5 per cent, 13th from the bottom in the state, dropping from 9.5 per cent in 2004. The figure was 11.2 per cent in 1996, the first time he won. The victory margin of the BJP's Pradeep Rawat, who won in 1999, was higher than all these, at 12.2 per cent.
The second challenge is that this time the Aam Aadmi Party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are also in the fray. The MNS is an offshoot of the Shiv Sena, which has an election alliance with the BJP, so its candidate Deepak Paigude, a close confidant of party chief Raj Thackeray, may split some of the BJP's votes. But the AAP's Subhash Ware, a veteran social worker, is more likely to eat into the Congress's than the BJP's base.
The Congress, which heads the ruling coalition both in the state and country, has been reeling from a series of scams, both at the national and state levels. This could worsen the anti-incumbency factor throughout the state.
"The main issue in this election is governance and whether the regime has been able to keep prices low, generate jobs and provide stability," said political analyst Prakash Bal. "If the government meets the demands of good governance then voters will not focus on corruption. On this front, the Congress is on a weak footing."
Moreover, the BJP has been good at capitalising on the Congress' mistakes. It has also selected candidates charged with various offences, such as BS Yeddyurappa, whom the BJP pressured into resigning from the party as Karnataka chief minister but has accepted him back and given him a ticket. But it has been more effective at portraying corruption as a solely Congress phenomenon, Bal said.
The candidates
The Congress also faces challenges because of its candidate. Vishwajeet Kadam is standing for election for the first time. He has the backing of both his father, Patangrao Kadam, Maharasthra's forest minister, and his father-in-law, Avinash Bhosale, an influential real estate and irrigation contractor based in Pune. But Kadam senior's constituency is Sangli, in western Maharashtra, where Vishwajeet Kadam had been campaigning until the Congress announced his candidature from Pune.
While Bhosale can no doubt provide both logistical and financial support to Kadam, his reputation has also suffered over the past five years. His father was allotted a flat in the Adarsh building, whose stated beneficiaries were widows of the Kargil war. A judicial commission found that politicians, including four former chief ministers, bureaucrats and army officials had bent rules to obtain land in a prime Mumbai locality to construct the tower and then proceeded to allot themselves flats. Bhosale was also linked to the huge irrigation scam in the state.
Kadam does have his own sources of strength. He is a young and fresh face. He also has an independent base in Pune: his father established the Bharatiya Vidyapeeth group of educational institutions in the city fifty years ago. The family, therefore, has had a visible presence in the city for decades. This mini-education empire also gives Kadam financial firepower.
Kadam can also count on the support of Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, a Congress ally that is part of the ruling coalition in the state and in the Pune Municipal Corporation. Pawar himself has a huge base in Pune. But the BJP's Shirole also has deep roots in the city. Like Kadam, Shirole is a Maratha, and this is almost certain to have played a role in the BJP's choice.
Shirole had been up against Girish Bapat, a member of the state assembly from the city's Kasba Peth constituency. Once it was clear that Kalmadi would not directly be in the fray and could create trouble for the Congress, the BJP no doubt felt it had an even better chance and had to choose carefully.
The BJP also took its time to announce its Pune candidate because the party's two main leaders in Maharashtra, Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari, who cannot see eye to eye, were said to have been pushing for different candidates: Munde, the BJP's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, who is also in charge of the party's campaign in Maharashtra, for Shirole, and Gadkari, the former BJP president who had to resign from this post in January last year on corruption charges, for Bapat.
Pune is set for a very interesting contest.
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Kalmadi, 69, the current Lok Sabha representative for Pune, has been elected three times from this constituency. But the Congress, reeling from a series of scams, could not possibly have given him a ticket after suspending him from the party in August 2011. This followed his arrest on charges of corruption and cheating during his tenure as the head of the committee that organised the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010.
But Kalmadi, who was released on bail in January 2012, nevertheless went into a sulk after the Congress on March 21 picked Vishwajeet Kadam, 33, who heads the party's youth wing in Maharashtra, to contest the Pune seat. Kalmadi, reports said, was bargaining with the Congress to rehabilitate him in return for his support. The party is said to have promised him a Rajya Sabha seat as soon as he manages a clean chit from the courts. That is a win-win deal for Kalmadi and the Congress party. If the scam-tainted politician had turned rebel and contested against Kadam, defeat would have awaited both.
"Kalmadi's support gives the Congress's candidate a fighting chance in Pune," said Prakash Bal, a political analyst in Thane. "Kalmadi has a big support base in the Pune Congress and this group will help Kadam organisationally. But if perceptions about the Congress's misgovernance get crystallised in voters' minds over the next month, then even this won't help."
Voting in Pune, an automobiles and information technology hub as well as the seat of Marathi high culture, is to take place on April 24. With 48 Lok Sabha seats out of 543, Maharashtra is crucial for any party seeking to come to power at the national level.
Born in 1944, Kalmadi, a Tulu-speaking Brahmin, grew up and studied in Pune. He studied at the city's Fergusson College and then at the National Defence Academy nearby. After graduating from the Academy, he served as a pilot in the Indian Air Force between 1964 and 1972, receiving several medals.
He began his political career in 1977 by heading the Congress's youth wing in Pune. A year later he took charge of the youth wing for the whole state. Over the years, he also became involved in civic issues and with the Pune municipal corporation. Besides working within the party, Kalmadi also began organising large events in Pune. He expanded the Pune Ganesh Festival, started the Pune International Marathon in 1983, began the Pune Festival in 1989 and brought the National Games to the city in 1994.
"Through these events, Kalmadi expanded his sports and cultural networks," said Sridhar Loni, a senior Pune-based journalist at the Maharashtra Times, a Marathi newspaper. "He acquired a reputation of being someone who could do big things. But he helped a lot of others to grow as well. His supporters know that there is corruption, but believe he has been made a scapegoat; that if he is guilty, then his higher-ups are also responsible."
When Kalmadi was released on bail and returned to Pune two years ago after spending 10 months in Delhi's Tihar Jail, his supporters in Pune welcomed him by bursting firecrackers, a testimony to the goodwill he still had in the city. Money power is said to be an important reason for his hold among political workers in the city, and that's another reason why his turning rebel would have hurt the Congress badly.
Yet, despite Kalmadi's backing, the Congress faces several challenges, both at the party and candidate levels. Although Pune has traditionally been a Congress bastion, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party both at the Centre and in Maharashtra, also has a strong presence in the city. It has won the seat twice, once in 1991 and again in 1999.
Moreover, Kalmadi's own victory margins have been steadily dropping. In 2009, it was 3.5 per cent, 13th from the bottom in the state, dropping from 9.5 per cent in 2004. The figure was 11.2 per cent in 1996, the first time he won. The victory margin of the BJP's Pradeep Rawat, who won in 1999, was higher than all these, at 12.2 per cent.
The second challenge is that this time the Aam Aadmi Party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are also in the fray. The MNS is an offshoot of the Shiv Sena, which has an election alliance with the BJP, so its candidate Deepak Paigude, a close confidant of party chief Raj Thackeray, may split some of the BJP's votes. But the AAP's Subhash Ware, a veteran social worker, is more likely to eat into the Congress's than the BJP's base.
The Congress, which heads the ruling coalition both in the state and country, has been reeling from a series of scams, both at the national and state levels. This could worsen the anti-incumbency factor throughout the state.
"The main issue in this election is governance and whether the regime has been able to keep prices low, generate jobs and provide stability," said political analyst Prakash Bal. "If the government meets the demands of good governance then voters will not focus on corruption. On this front, the Congress is on a weak footing."
Moreover, the BJP has been good at capitalising on the Congress' mistakes. It has also selected candidates charged with various offences, such as BS Yeddyurappa, whom the BJP pressured into resigning from the party as Karnataka chief minister but has accepted him back and given him a ticket. But it has been more effective at portraying corruption as a solely Congress phenomenon, Bal said.
The candidates
The Congress also faces challenges because of its candidate. Vishwajeet Kadam is standing for election for the first time. He has the backing of both his father, Patangrao Kadam, Maharasthra's forest minister, and his father-in-law, Avinash Bhosale, an influential real estate and irrigation contractor based in Pune. But Kadam senior's constituency is Sangli, in western Maharashtra, where Vishwajeet Kadam had been campaigning until the Congress announced his candidature from Pune.
While Bhosale can no doubt provide both logistical and financial support to Kadam, his reputation has also suffered over the past five years. His father was allotted a flat in the Adarsh building, whose stated beneficiaries were widows of the Kargil war. A judicial commission found that politicians, including four former chief ministers, bureaucrats and army officials had bent rules to obtain land in a prime Mumbai locality to construct the tower and then proceeded to allot themselves flats. Bhosale was also linked to the huge irrigation scam in the state.
Kadam does have his own sources of strength. He is a young and fresh face. He also has an independent base in Pune: his father established the Bharatiya Vidyapeeth group of educational institutions in the city fifty years ago. The family, therefore, has had a visible presence in the city for decades. This mini-education empire also gives Kadam financial firepower.
Kadam can also count on the support of Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party, a Congress ally that is part of the ruling coalition in the state and in the Pune Municipal Corporation. Pawar himself has a huge base in Pune. But the BJP's Shirole also has deep roots in the city. Like Kadam, Shirole is a Maratha, and this is almost certain to have played a role in the BJP's choice.
Shirole had been up against Girish Bapat, a member of the state assembly from the city's Kasba Peth constituency. Once it was clear that Kalmadi would not directly be in the fray and could create trouble for the Congress, the BJP no doubt felt it had an even better chance and had to choose carefully.
The BJP also took its time to announce its Pune candidate because the party's two main leaders in Maharashtra, Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari, who cannot see eye to eye, were said to have been pushing for different candidates: Munde, the BJP's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, who is also in charge of the party's campaign in Maharashtra, for Shirole, and Gadkari, the former BJP president who had to resign from this post in January last year on corruption charges, for Bapat.
Pune is set for a very interesting contest.