Pandharpur, Oct. 10: As he handed out a tumbler of milky tea, the teenager manning the tea stall just outside the Nationalist Congress Party office here muttered a veiled warning for Sharad Pawar.

“Pawar saab has done more for this region than anyone else. But no one should think they can take people for granted,” he said.

Widening cracks in the NCP’s sugar fortress of western Maharashtra are confronting party chief Pawar with a battle that may prove as crucial to his future as returning to power in the state with the Congress.

A battle — say both Congress and NCP leaders — best represented by the contest here in Pandharpur, where the family that has helped Pawar paper over these cracks in the past itself faces an open challenge.

When Sushil Kumar Shinde’s prospects in the recent Lok Sabha polls appeared doubtful, Sharad Pawar turned to the Mohite-Patil family that has dominated the sugar co-operatives in Solapur district for four decades now. Shinde won.

Five years back, when the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance decided to field then ally Ramdas Athawale from Pandharpur in the Lok Sabha polls, it was the Mohite-Patils who were entrusted with the task of ensuring a victory. They did not fail.

Now, perhaps for the first time, Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, former deputy chief minister and head of the Mohite-Patil family, appears to be facing a serious electoral challenge.

Bharat Tukaram Balki, an NCP rebel, but more importantly the chairman of the biggest sugar cooperative factory in this constituency, is contesting in protest against Pawar’s decision to “parachute” an outsider candidate for Pandharpur.

The “third front” of Athawale, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan is supporting Balki.

The Mohite-Patils are the de facto first family of Akluj, a town in Solapur district, where they are revered by local people for developing schools, colleges, roads and for assisting the poor and the needy.

Their influence, however, extends over sugar co-operatives far beyond Akluj, across Solapur district.

Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil has repeatedly contested and won from the Malshiras Assembly constituency, which borders Pandharpur. But Malshiras has been reserved for the Scheduled Castes after delimitation, forcing the NCP to hunt for another constituency for him.

When Mohite-Patil’s candidature was announced from Pandharpur, a protest by local NCP workers forced a bandh in the town for a day.

The farmers of Pandharpur constituency, at least at present, appear “more connected” to Balki than to Mohite-Patil, said Sunil Kulkarni, a local political analyst.

“In western Maharashtra, the head of a sugar cooperative wields immense influence over farmers. And Balki is very popular with his farmers,” claimed Shekhar Bhosle, campaign manager for Balki.

Sudhakar Paricharak, the sitting NCP MLA from Pandharpur, has now been persuaded to campaign for the official candidate.

The NCP and the Mohite-Patil family, aware of the symbolism this contest holds, are campaigning round the clock to ensure a victory.

The party has brandished the expulsion sword across western Maharashtra and its leaders — at least officially — claim the party remains on firm ground in the region, including Pandharpur.

“If the rebels think we have no options but to bend before them, they are wrong. We have acted against all rebels and will retain our pre-eminent position in the region,” said Govindrao Adik, NCP general secretary and one of Pawar’s closest aides.

But statistics from the recent Lok Sabha polls indicate that the cracks are beginning to impact the NCP’s performance.

In the 2004 Assembly polls, the western Maharashtra region — which sends the largest chunk of representatives (72) to the 288-member House — was critically responsible for the Congress-NCP victory in the state.

The alliance trailed the BJP-Shiv Sena team in the Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan regions, winning only the smaller Khandesh segment in north Maharashtra and emerging on almost even terms in Mumbai.

The margin of victory for the NCP (26 seats) and the Congress (16) over the saffron alliance (17) in this region helped them emerge victorious and hoisted Pawar’s party as the largest in the state.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the NCP had won six seats and the Congress another three of the 12 from the region. Athawale of the Republican Party of India also won from the region as a member of the alliance.

But in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the NCP won only three seats — while the Congress retained its three. In contrast, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine won four seats, just two short of the Congress-NCP alliance.

NCP sources accepted the impact of the emerging cracks, but argued that it takes time for an edifice, built and nurtured over decades, to collapse.

Mohite-Patil’s performance in Pandharpur may indicate if Pawar should start worrying about such a collapse.