Pune

Supriya Sule on Monday said the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction) will not field a candidate against Sunetra Pawar in the upcoming bypoll to the Baramati assembly seat.

The Election Commission of India on Sunday announced that bypolls to Baramati in Pune district and Rahuri will be held on April 23. The vacancies were necessitated by the deaths of then deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and BJP legislator Shivaji Kardile.

“I have already clarified that NCP (SP) will not contest the Baramati bypoll. We will not field our candidate against Sunetra Vahini (sister-in-law),” Sule told reporters in New Delhi.

She said the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi would soon decide its candidate for the Rahuri bypoll after discussions among alliance partners.

Earlier on Sunday, Devendra Fadnavis said efforts would be made to hold the Baramati and Rahuri bypolls unopposed through consensus, though the Bharatiya Janata Party was prepared for a contest if required.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Sule, daughter of Sharad Pawar, retained the Baramati parliamentary seat by defeating her cousin Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar in her first electoral contest.

Sunetra Pawar was later elected to the Rajya Sabha. Following Ajit Pawar’s death in a plane crash near the Baramati airstrip in January this year, she was appointed deputy chief minister and president of the NCP.

Sule also reiterated the demand for a transparent probe into the plane crash involving Ajit Pawar.

Commenting on the LPG situation amid tensions in West Asia, she urged the Centre to convene an all-party meeting and take political parties into confidence.

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“The businesses, including the hotel industry, have been facing difficulties due to geopolitical volatility,” she said, also calling for a discussion in Parliament on the issue.