Kalmadi causing rift in Pawar camp?

The issue of supporting the Congress candidate for the Pune Lok Sabha seat, Suresh Kalmadi, is likely to create a rift between Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit, the water resources minister in the Maharashtra government.

On Saturday, Sharad Pawar hit out at his party’s corporators and office-bearers of the city unit for staying away from campaigning for Kalmadi and sending a wrong signal to the voters. He even threatened to withdraw his nomination from the Madha constituency and camp in Pune to campaign for Kalmadi.

On the other hand, party sources say councillors and office-bearers had been asked by Ajit Pawar to stay away from campaigning for Kalmadi.

The NCP chief, who has also set his eyes on the prime ministerial post, has told his party leaders that he will cut a sorry figure if he cannot ensure the victory of Kalmadi from his home district.It is the NCP’s “worst kept” secret that Ajit Pawar and Kalmadi do not get along.

Last week, Ajit Pawar also stayed away from attending joint public meetings of all Congress-NCP candidates from Pune district, on the pretext that he was busy with campaigning for his cousin and daughter of Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule, the NCP candidate from the Baramati constituency. Interestingly, Sule herself was present at many of these joint meetings.

There was a time Kalmadi was regarded as Sharad Pawar’s “Man Friday” in Delhi. However, they reportedly fell out following Ajit Pawar’s interference in Pune politics. But ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, common friend and industrialist Rahul Bajaj helped work out a truce between Kalmadi and Sharad Pawar. Kalmadi won from the seat in 2004.