This sugar baron takes pride in the fact that he could easily be the oldest candidate fighting the Assembly elections this time. S R Patil's poll affidavit says he is 88 years old but Appasaheb, as he calls himself in his visiting card, or Saare Patil, as he is fondly called by all, takes you aside and whispers that he will be turning 89 in December.

Born on December 21, 1921, Saare Patil could easily have been the contemporary of Jawaharlal Nehru and later perhaps of Indira Gandhi; surely he could not have quite gelled with the age-group that Rajiv Gandhi wanted to usher into politics in the mid-80s as he would have been in his mid-60s then.

A quaint old man, with a golf cap as a perpetual fixture on his head as the dentures are in his mouth, Saare is the Congress candidate who many believe has a realistic chance of beating Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana (SSS) candidate Ulhas Patil. A little hard of hearing, Saare turns to his aides once in a while to bail him out when he loses the thread of the conversation, but seems only too eager to point out that he is not an active Congressman but chosen to deliver a particular task.

“I don’t know the Gandhi family though it is true that Rahul Gandhi came and visited my sugar factory earlier this year. It was Sharad Pawar who told him my sugar cooperative was worth visiting but that has nothing to do with my contesting these polls. At that time there was no such plan,” says Patil, chairman of Shree Datta Shetkari Sahakari Sakhar Karakhana Ltd.

... contd.