Just seven kilometres from the tehsil office in the Baramati constituency that elected Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar as legislator, his uncle—Nationalist Congress Party (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, who represented Baramati from 1967 to 1991—told a public gathering in Nirvagaj village on June 19 that all farmers’ issues could be resolved if and when “the power of the state government comes into our [the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s] hands”. The NCP (SP) supremo and key MVA leader was touring drought-affected villages in Baramati, around 100 km southeast of Pune city, that contributed around 12.17 per cent of Maharashtra’s sugarcane production in 2022-23, according to the Pune-based Vasantdada Sugar Institute.

Along with Nashik’s Malegaon tehsil, Baramati—bastion of the Pawars, one of India’s most popular and powerful political families, since 1967, the year of the uprising in Naxalbari, 30 km from West Bengal’s Siliguri town—is among the largest producers of the water-guzzling cash crop. Water scarcity has long plagued Baramati, though factories of multinationals, under-construction buildings of burgeoning realty projects and newly paved roads give the town of 429,000 inhabitants a shine like no other tehsil town.

“Today, neither the central nor the state government is run by us, but going by the Lok Sabha polls this year I cannot see how the reins of the state government would not come into our [MVA’s] hands,” Sharad Pawar told the farmers at Nirvagaj, a village of around 7,200 people, adding that his party and its coalition would resolve issues such as water scarcity if voted to power this month. His nephew, Ajit Pawar, who won the Baramati assembly seat for the first time in 1991, was in the undivided NCP when he bagged 83 per cent of the votes in 2019, a significant rise from 60 per cent in 2014. Other than the uncle-and-nephew duo, the family also includes Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter who has been a member of Parliament from Baramati four times.

Some locals credit the Pawars for Baramati’s transformation from a mofussil to an industrial town. Sharad Pawar has been the chief minister of Maharashtra for four times. Each time, say the locals, Baramati was a key focus of his work—he ensured that new factories were set up, with provisions for proper water and electricity supply and other amenities. Moreover, as Union minister of agriculture in both the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments under Manmohan Singh from 2004 to 2014, Sharad Pawar made sure that sugar cooperatives in and around Baramati received proper attention. He established the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in the town to promote advanced farming techniques, reinforcing his image as a champion of farmers’ rights and welfare.

Earlier this year, Baramati ranked first in the Majhi Vasundhara Abhiyan (My Earth Campaign), a state-level initiative for promoting environmental sustainability. However, just 33 km from the tehsil office and 70 km from Pune off the Pune-Baramati highway, Balerao Kelkar in Supe village points out that many farms in the area are facing water shortage. “Even finding enough potable water for drinking and domestic use has been a problem. There are borewells here and there but they often run dry,” says Kelkar, who runs a betel shop on the main street in Supe and has been one of its nearly 5,000 residents for 20 years. Sharad Yengde, who runs a general store in the village, says that other than water supply there are “no significant issues”, and that “even here we see some improvement”. “Everyone in the village has some or the other business that they run,” Yengde adds.

At a rally in Sonkaswadi village, 19 km from Baramati and 106 km from Pune, a new political face that has emerged in the Pawar family ahead of the assembly election this year—Yugendra, son of Ajit Pawar’s brother Shrinivas Pawar—targets the incumbent Mahayuti government on farmers’ issues. As treasurer of the Vidya Pratisthan, an educational institute founded by his grandfather Sharad Pawar, and head of the Baramati Taluka Kustigir Parishad, the local wrestling authority body, Yugendra’s politics revolves around the work done by the NCP (SP) supremo, and how the Mahayuti government, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the NCP (Ajit Pawar), the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and their allies, has failed to address the issues of young people and farmers such as unemployment and water scarcity.

“The other parties left us and joined hands with the BJP in the Mahayuti coalition,” Yugendra says at the rally in the village of 2,200 residents. “They are communal people and enemies of farmers. They did nothing for farmers. Earlier, we were exporting milk to other regions. During (Sharad) Pawar saheb’s reign [as CM and Union agriculture minister], he brought in multinational companies to Baramati for the milk business that made processed products such as butter and cheese, which were sold under the brand name of Britannia.”

In another public address, 13 km from the tehsil office and 100 km from Pune, at Pandare village, Yugendra talks about job creation and setting up of new industries. “Sharad Pawar brought the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation to Baramati, besides several other industries. But new industries haven’t come in since then, leading to a high rate of unemployment among the young people in Baramati. I have a dream of building an IT park in Baramati just like the one at Hingewadi in Pune,” Yugendra tells the gathering in the village of nearly 7,500 people.

Though the Pawars are seen as the ultimate political family in Baramati, locals say they are still trying to figure out Yugendra. “Ajit (Pawar) dada (brother) is a good man,” a Baramati resident says requesting anonymity. “He has worked for us, and we can see him winning Baramati again.” Yugendra, however, chooses to draw attention in his public speeches to how he is seen as a “new face” by most people. “We need young politicians for change. Yes, I am young and new, but every politician was once new and young. The politics of change has to start somewhere,” Yugendra tells the crowd at Pandare.

While the way the wind blows in Baramati does indicate another victory for Ajit Pawar, people are still nursing the hurt caused by the NCP’s split into the Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar factions in 2023, which left a seemingly indelible mark on their minds. “We are hurt by what Ajit dada did by splitting the NCP. This move drew a lot of flak from people,” says a shopkeeper in Baramati.