Mohammad Azharuddin with Sushil Kumar Shinde’s daughter Praniti at the Congress meeting in Solapur. Pictures by Satish Nandgaonkar

Solapur, Oct. 13: Mohammad Azharuddin may be a Congress politician now but he isn’t the one to let a bragging opponent go unchallenged on his party’s “pitch”.

“I can boast before a match that I will hit a 100, but that doesn’t count. You have to work very hard to score a century. Similarly, just chest-thumping by (Narendra) Modiji doesn’t count. Show us what you have and then boast about it,” the former India captain told a crowd of largely minority voters yesterday at a rally for senior Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde’s daughter Praniti.

The outgoing MLA of the Solapur City Central constituency, the 33-year-old Praniti is seeking a second term this time.

But the alumna of Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College faces a tough election in a five-cornered contest. Two of her father’s former associates in Solapur — a Congress bastion for decades until it cracked in this year’s Lok Sabha polls — are contesting against her as candidates of the Shiv Sena and minority outfit All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM).

Shinde, who represented Solapur in Parliament for close to four decades, lost the general election by nearly 1.5 lakh votes to a BJP candidate. The churn was underlined further when it emerged that the BJP led in all six Assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency. Old-timers could not recall such a trend in recent memory.

CPM candidate Narsayya Adam

This time, the former Union home minister marshalled “stars” for Praniti as the campaign wound to a close this evening ahead of Wednesday’s polling.

Other than Azharuddin, the line-up included former Speaker Meira Kumar, and Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Jyotiraditya Scindia. The trio addressed public meetings on Friday.

“The Modi wave led to Shinde’s defeat. His defeat was a loss to Solapur. To make up for this loss to a certain extent, vote for Praniti. The Congress has always worked for backward classes and by appointing me (as Speaker) and Shinde (as home minister), the party honoured the community,” Meira had said, playing on her Dalit roots and that of the Shindes.

Shinde brought Azhar to specifically counter the challenge from the Hyderabad-based MIM, which is contesting 25 seats in its Maharashtra debut, most of them in pockets with high minority voters. In Solapur, their proportion is over 25 per cent. Observers believe the MIM spied a chance in the falling stock of the Congress, which had so far bagged the community’s votes.

Sushil Kumar Shinde

But Azhar held up the Congress “as the only party that works for the poor”. “The aim of those who have betrayed Shinde sahib and gone to other parties is to split votes. Someone like Praniti has brought development projects worth Rs 1,500 crore. That is huge for an MLA to do. She has worked to improve water supply, hospitals and power,” said Azhar.

The “betrayers” he alluded to are Sena candidate Mahesh Kothe — who till this year’s Lok Sabha polls was known as Shinde’s “right-hand man” in Solapur — and Taufiq Shaikh, the younger brother of ex-Congress mayor Arif Shaikh. Shaikh is the MIM nominee.

But Azhar, who hails from Hyderabad, refrained from a direct attack at the rival from his hometown.

“About the MIM, I don’t want to speak much. A few young people may be supporting the MIM, but you have to remember that their intentions are wrong. The Congress is a truly secular party. I know we are facing a different kind of election this time and it is a tough election, but when the Congress stays united, it wins,” said Azhar, who was elected MP from Moradabad in 2009 but lost from the Tonk-Sawai Madhopur seat in Rajasthan this year.

While the Sena’s Kothe and the BJP’s Mohini Patki are likely to divide Hindu votes, Shaikh is likely gnaw into those of the Congress. “Our worst fear is that this division of votes will benefit the Sena candidate,” said Usman Rafi Chakole, a local Congress leader.

The MNS has, like in the past, fielded a Muslim, Sattar Usman Shaikh, but neither the Raj Thackeray party nominee nor the NCP’s Vidya Lolage have much organisational strength to back them.

All this has made Narsayya Adam, a local CPM veteran and an old rival of the Shindes, more hopeful than ever. “This is a golden opportunity for me. Ours is the only party whose votes won’t be divided. The candidate who crosses 45,000 will be the winner here,” said the three-time MLA, known as “Adam Master” to many here.

Adam, who was elected in 1978, 1994 and 1995 but lost to Praniti in the 2009 polls, drilled holes into the Congress’s claim that Praniti brought projects worth Rs 1,500 crore.

“The Congress may flaunt the figure of Rs 1,500 crore, but you can’t see it on the ground. The roads are in poor shape, tap water is available once in three days and the housing scheme for beedi and textile workers that Praniti promised has not been implemented,” Adam said, sitting in his office in a slum in the Datta Nagar area.

Adam had led public protests last year against the transfer of Chandrakant Guddewar, the Solapur municipal commissioner known for his initiatives to curb corruption and make the civic administration citizen-friendly. The prolonged protests eventually forced the Congress-NCP government to reinstate the IAS officer.