Reeling from a downward spiral since the exit of Suresh Kalmadi from city politics, the Congress’s Pune unit has got something to cheer about as the victory of Ravindra Dhangekar, its Kasba bypoll candidate, on Thursday gave it an MLA after almost a decade.
In 2009, the Congress managed to get two MLAs elected from the city — Vinayak Nimhan from Shivajinagar and Ramesh Bagwe from Pune Cantonment — but could not retain the seats in 2014 as the BJP won all the eight seats in the city, with all parties contesting the election independently.
In 2019, the Congress contested the Shivajinagar, Pune Cantonment and Kasba seats as per an arrangement with the NCP but failed to win any of them.
Once a Congress bastion, Pune lost the tag after facing defeat in the past two Lok Sabha elections to the BJP —Vishwajeed Kadam lost to Anil Shirole in 2014 and Mohan Joshi was beaten by Girish Bapat in 2019. Kalmadi won the seat for the Congress in 2004 and 2009.
The Kalmadi-led Congress lost its control over the Pune Municipal Corporation in 2007, when NCP emerged as the single-largest party in the civic body and held its reins till 2017. The Congress ruled the civic body for a long time and last ruled it in 2002, with 61 corporators. Its strength dropped to 36 in 2007 and to 28 in 2012 before going further down to 9 in 2017.
The Congress failed to rise for a long time for want of a strong local leadership to challenge the growing power of the NCP’s Ajit Pawar and later the BJP. “It’s a fact that the Congress’s strength has weakened in the last few decades. Our party is the oldest of all and needs an opportunity to bounce back. The victory in the Kasba bypoll will bring the necessary change,” said a Congress leader.
He said that local-level factionalism had an adverse impact on the party’s electoral performances. But, he said, the Kasba bypoll has shown the party can win polls if it can ensure the participation of everyone.
