Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/271

 Next year the Assembly election took place on 21 and 22 January. To formulate its policy, the SS had a special convention in Dhule. Leaders of all political parties were also invited. All parties had sent their representatives except Congress (I). N. D. Patil of Peasants and Workers Party, P. K. Patil of Janata Party, Padmsinh Patil of Congress (S), Kumar Shiralkar of CPM, Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena, Ashok Jagtap of Bahujan Samaj Party and Pramod Mahajan of BJP were present and they also spoke. After that convention, Executive Committee of SS met separately. It was decided that SS would support Progressive Democratic Party (Purogami Lokshahi Dal) floated by Sharad Pawar who had, a little earlier, split from Congress (I). When Joshi started his farming at Ambethan, Pawar was the minister for agriculture in Maharashtra under the Chief Minister Vasantdada Patil. Soon Pawar revolted against Vasantdada and himself became the Chief Minister in 1978. He was barely 38 then and was the youngest Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Joshi felt that even in 1985, Pawar was more powerful than other opposition leaders and Pawar-led Party had the best chance to offer a tough fight to Congress (I). With that logic, Joshi decided to support that Party. In that election Joshi himself campaigned fervently for PDP. He addressed numerous meetings urging all his followers to support PDP. Two candidates of SS, Moreshwar Temurde from Chandrapur and Dr Vasantrao Bonde from Hinganghat, were elected. PDP did quite well winning 54 seats. The best show it put up was in Nashik district from where all their fourteen candidates were elected. That was the district where SS fought its sugarcane agitation and where it had a large base. The overall victor, as widely predicted, was Congress (I) which soon formed its government. Surprisingly, Sharad Pawar who had earlier revolted against Congress (I) to form his own party and had contested the election against Congress (I), joined the same Congress (I) again the very next year. In June 1988 he even became the Chief 250

Q

Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage