Maharashtra Elections: A Daughter Returns The Favour To Sharad Pawar By Contesting Against Her Father

Maharashtra is witnessing electoral contests not just between uncles and nephews but also between a father and her daughter.

Baba Dharmarao Atram, the Nationalist Congress Party candidate from the Aheri constituency in Gadchiroli district, finds himself in a nail-biting race this election. His opponent? None other than his own daughter, Bhagyashree Atram, who has secured the ticket from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, making this a real family feud worth watching. But Baba Atram's story is no stranger to drama. He was on national news in 1991.

In the 1990 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, Atram won a seat as an MLA on a Congress ticket. Just a year later, during the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, Baba Atram was pounding the pavement with Congress candidate Shantaram Potdukhe, going door to door and rallying support. While campaigning in a village called Medpalli near Allapalli, where the air was thick with wedding festivities, Baba Atram's world was about to be turned upside down. As he chatted with villagers at the local school, around half a dozen Naxalites swooped in out of the blue, guns drawn, demanding he come with them. The villagers stood shoulder to shoulder around Atram, but he knew that resistance would mean bloodbath, so he asked them to back down.

The news of Atram's abduction spread like wildfire, sparking nationwide outrage. The Congress-led state government found itself between a rock and a hard place. Pawar, not one to let grass grow under his feet, kept a close line with Gadchiroli’s superintendent of police, KP Raghuvanshi, who spearheaded the rescue mission.

The Naxalites threw down the gauntlet: they would only free Atram if the government released their imprisoned comrade, Shivanna, a notorious Naxalite with a long list of crimes. The authorities were now in a tight spot, playing a high-stakes game of chess.

Meanwhile, in nearby Andhra Pradesh, tensions reached a boiling point as Naxalites retaliated by assassinating a Congress MLA in his home. For nearly 15 days, the police scoured every nook and cranny, but Atram was nowhere to be found. Eventually, the government decided to bite the bullet. A lawyer was sent in as a go-between, and Shivanna was released on bail across all his charges, vanishing into the thick of the jungle with his lawyer. The Naxalites kept their words and released Baba Atram.

Bhagyashree Atram, Baba's daughter, said that she chose to contest from Sharad Pawar’s party because it was due to Pawar's efforts that Baba was rescued. It was her way of returning the favour.

(Jitendra Dixit is contributing editor of NDTV and author of the book Bombay After Ayodhya)