Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 | Royal family drama unfolds in Aheri

Gadchiroli/Nagpur: The Atrams of the Aheri royal family in the Gadchiroli district are engaged in a fierce contest between father and daughter. However, the battle has become triangular as a nephew too has joined in.

The Aheri seat, a Schedule Tribes (ST) reserved constituency would be keenly-watched like Baramati, where NCP President and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is pitted against his nephew Yugendra Pawar, who has been fielded by Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

Aheri is a Naxalite-infested tehsil-town in Gadchiroli district of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

The Aheri seat would witness a battle between four-time sitting MLA and minister Dharmarao Baba Atram and his daughter Bhagyashree Atram-Halgekar, the candidate of NCP (SP). Incidentally, Dharmaraobaba’s nephew Ambrishrao Atram, a former BJP minister, is contesting as an Independent.

The Atrams belong to Gond tribes.

It's a big fight between NCP, which is part of BJP-led Maha Yuti and Congress-headed Maha Vikas Aghadi.

Aheri falls under the Gadchiroli-Chimur Lok Sabha seat, which in 2024 was won by Dr Namdeo Kirsan of the Congress defeating two-time sitting BJP MP Ashok Nete.

In 2014, Bhagyashree, who had political ambitions, unsuccessfully contested the Gadchiroli seat for undivided NCP.

Dharmaraobaba was keen to contest the Gadchiroli-Chimur Lok Sabha seat and leave the Assembly for daughter, however, the BJP had a sitting MP at that point of time.

After the Lok Sabha polls, there were war-of-words involving the father-daughter.

In the run up to the Assembly polls, Dharmaraobaba urged voters in Aheri to throw his daughter Bhagyashree and son-in-law Rituraj Halgekar in the Pranhita river - a tributary of Godavari - for ‘treachery’. "Don't trust my son-in-law and daughter…These people have ditched me. Everyone should throw them in the nearby Pranhita River,” the senior Atram had said in the presence of Ajit Pawar.

Bhagyashree, however, responded when he joined the NCP (SP) in presence of state NCP President Jayant Patil and former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh. “When my father was abducted by Naxalites, it was Sharad Pawar Saheb who secured his safe release,” she said referring to the 1991 incident. “This is my way of paying gratitude for saving my father,” she said.

Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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