Kolhapur, Oct. 10: Nestled in the Sahyadri hills on the banks of the river Panchaganga, Kolhapur is associated with the Mahalakshmi temple and its chappals.

Few would recognise it as the country?s premier training centre for wrestlers and fewer still that it was the first to have an official reservation policy in education and jobs for the backward castes.

The credit for making Kolhapur the number one akhada (wrestling ring) and the historical fountainhead of Mandal goes to Chhatrapati Sahu Maharaj, who ruled the former princely state from 1849 and left his imprint after a long rule.

His descendant is contesting the elections as a Congress candidate backed by the Nationalist Congress Party. But unlike his illustrious ancestor, the 30-something Chhatrapati Maluje Raje has no firsts to his credit other than being the first member of the family to enter politics. A fact he airily explains away: ?Well, somebody has got to do it some time.?

Sahu Maharaj, adopted as an icon by the Bahujan Samaj Party, had to battle the brahminical stranglehold over the power structure when he decided to introduce reservation.

His first verbal directive was ignored by the administration. He issued an order with statutory force on July 26, 1902, legislating 50 per cent reservation for the backward castes. The administration would not implement it. Finally, Sahu Maharaj summoned his officials and threatened to sack them. That worked.

Raje evidently carries no historical baggage on his lean frame. He merely speaks the Congress-NCP lingo of ?vikas? and ?secularism? while on a padayatra in the Muslim and Dalit bastis.

?I have to improve the water supply. Sahu Maharaj had built the first dam here. There?s a lot of potential for tourism. I am completely with the Dalits and Muslims; I will work for every section.?

Sahu Maharaj was the first Kolhapur ruler to set up taleem (not to be confused with the Urdu word for education), that is gyms for wrestlers.

?He believed in creating rounded personalities, boys who would be physically and mentally fit,? says ?Hind Kesri? Ganpatrao Andalkar, a wrestler and an Arjuna awardee.

The tradition has been kept alive to such an extent that in cricket-crazy Maharashtra, Kolhapur is the only town that prefers wrestling and football.

Raje?s closest rival, sitting MLA Suresh Saluke from the Shiv Sena, has converted the contest literally into an akhada. According to Saluke?s poll in-charge Sambhaji Dattatreya Sase, the ?Chhatrapati? honorific is ?fake? because it was conferred only on Shivaji.

Raje, he alleges, is from the Bhosle clan and has no business adopting a more regal title. The Kolhapur district gazette, however, refers to Sahu Maharaj as a ?Chhatrapati?.

Next, Sase charges Raje with ?party hopping?. ?First, he came to us for a ticket, then went to the NCP. When Sharad Pawar showed him the door, he ran to Sonia Gandhi and persuaded her to field him.?

The Congress-NCP?s explanation is that if the latter had got Kolhapur in its quota, Pawar would have chosen Raje.

He is a close relative of Digvijay Khanvilkar, NCP spokesman and a senior minister in the Democratic Front government.

But what nettles Sase the most is that Kolhapur?s top wrestlers support Raje. ?How could they do it? Our MLA contributed a bulk of his constituency fund to reviving the gyms. They had ceased to exist after Sahu Maharaj?s rule,? Sase claims.