AURANGABAD, February 2: The great divide between Patils and Deshmukhs of the Maratha community has time and again proved to be a thorn in the flesh of two Congress stalwarts in Nanded district, Gangadhar Kuntoorkar and Bhaskarrao-Patil Khatgaonkar.When the Congress declared its first list of candidates to contest the Lok Sabha elections, sitting MP from Nanded, Gangadharrao Kuntoorkar, seemed to be the natural choice. He was among the only two Congress MPs from Marathwada region, which has a total of eight seats. The other being Shivraj Patil Chakurkar from Latur.
In a neck-and-neck fight, facing not one but three tough contestants, Kuntoorkar, reached the shore polling 1,85,302 votes. Dr Dhanaji Deshmukh of the BJP polled just about 12,000 less, while Haribhau Shelke of the Bharatiya Republican Party chased him uptil the 1,19,606 mark. Sharad Joshi of the Shetkari Sanghatana who had contested on a Janata Party ticket and was the one who hogged the limelight all through the campaign poll, finished a poorfourth with 71,460 votes.
Thus except for former Union minister S B Chavan, none was too surprised to read Kuntoorkar's name in the first list.
However, Chavan, who was keen that his son-in-law, former minister and present MLA from Biloli in Nanded district, be allotted the Congress ticket, had other ideas.
Without losing any more time, the former Union minister landed in New Delhi and told the party High Command that Kuntoorkar was not interested in contesting for a second term given the BJP wave which seemed to threaten the whole of Marathwada in its stride.
Interestingly, before leaving Nanded, Chavan, sources said had asked Kuntoorkar to get busy with poll campaigning and that he would handle things on his behalf in Delhi.
The Congress MP was thus at his wit's end when he got a call from party president Sitaram Kesri, enquiring why he was not interested to run for a second term. Kuntoorkar now realised Chavan's gameplan and rushed to Delhi.
But by then it was too late. the former Unionminister had managed to replace Kuntoorkar's name with that of his son-in-law, Bhaskarrao Patil Khatgaonkar in the list.
Ironically, back in 1985 during the state assembly elections, it was Kuntoorkar who had pulled a fast one on Bhaskarrao-Patil. The Chavan son-in-law had been celebrating his first ever nomination as a Congress candidate.
But he turned pale on learning that the party High Command had second thoughts on his candidature and it would be Kuntoorkar who would contest.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
