Udayanraje Bhonsle, the thirteenth descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, settled down on a sofa in the reception area of Hotel Maharaja Regency in Satara, in southern Maharashtra. It was the morning of 12 April, five days before the Satara constituency went to polls. Dressed in a spotless white kurta-pyjama, Bhonsle, who is the incumbent MP, appeared relaxed. As we discussed seventeenth-century Maratha history, he drew an unconvincing parallel between the exploits of Maratha warrior kings and present day political issues. “Times have changed, yet problems are very similar,” he said. “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj fought his enemies so people could live freely. Today, we are a global market. Not only have multinationals come to India, but Western culture is invading us.”
The Maratha Empire extended over the subcontinent for almost 150 years, till it was defeated by the British East India Company in the Third Anglo-Maratha War between 1817 and 1818. After the war, the Bhonsles were reduced to petty chieftains, their conduct monitored and directed by a British agent. It was only more than 25 years after independence that the royal family took its first tentative step into electoral politics, when Udayanraje’s father Pratapsinghraje successfully contested for the presidentship of the Satara Municipal Council in 1974.
Bhonsle, who made his debut with local body elections in the early 1990s, won the Satara parliamentary seat in 2009 for the Nationalist Congress Party, defeating his main rival, Purushottam Jadhav of the Shiv Sena, by a margin of 2.97 lakh votes, the third highest in Maharashtra for that election. He has been re-nominated this year, while the NCP attempts to fend off a strong anti-incumbency sentiment, according to polls.
The 48-year-old Bhonsle has support from some unexpected corners, such as the Shramik Mukti Dal, or the toilers’ liberation league, an outfit committed to the visions of Marx, Phule and Ambedkar, and which fights for farmers and workers’ rights on issues of droughts, dams and project evictions. Over a telephone conversation, Bharat Patankar, a veteran leader of the Dal, justified the left wing organisation’s decision to support a wealthy royal candidate. “We have extended support to Udayanraje Bhonsle based on certain principles,” Patankar said. “The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, which has been joined by the likes of Ramdas Athawale, is a communal front, and their projection of Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate is anti-constitutional and a perversion of history.” He explained that the Dal felt that to stop Modi in his tracks, it should support a candidate capable of winning and taking on forces that are anti-secular and against people’s movements.
The Dal has a written undertaking from Bhonsle, committing to the rehabilitation of nearly forty thousand families affected by dams in the region, as well as the Sahyadri Tiger Project. He has also promised to support the Dal’s alternative development model. “We want equitable distribution of resources like air, water, jungle and even spectrum, with special allocations for women and the landless,” Patankar said. “Any development that ignores these aspects will end up destroying humankind and nature.”
Bhonsle’s progressive promises may reassure voters, but he has a controversial past that might give some pause. He was arrested in 1999 for the murder of an NCP worker in Satara that had taken place while he was a minister of state for revenue in the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. He faced trial in a local court that acquitted him a decade later.
Bhonsle has also been given to provocative statements. After he won the parliamentary seat in 2009, Bhonsle declared that he did not attach any importance to the party he was representing. Last year, local media reported his rants against all political parties, including his own. “BJP, RPI, Congress, NCP, whoever, I don’t care a damn. I am the high command here,” he said. “Let them ignore me, if they have the guts.”
In February this year, he posed for a photograph outside a church in Satara with a service revolver borrowed from his armed police escort. An image was circulated on the internet and alarmed the police top brass, which took disciplinary action against the concerned officer. But the behaviour was consistent with Bhonsle’s brash ways. After all, this was the man who, during a confrontation with district officials last year, said, “According to me, MP stands for military police.”
Some believe that these shows of power attract people to him. Deepak Prabhawalkar, Satara edition-in-charge of Marathi daily Tarun Bharat, said that though villagers often complained that he never visited them, they showered him with affection when he did make an appearance. “It’s as if they have met a film star,” he said. “It doesn’t even matter if they have been supporters of rival political parties.”
Among those who are taking on Bhonsle’s might in the region is Varsha Madgulkar, a lawyer who also runs a cooperative bank, sugar mill and publishing house. The only woman in the fray, Madgulkar is a BJP worker but decided to contest as an independent after she was denied a ticket by the BJP-Sena-RPI alliance. “No party seemed ready to challenge Udayanraje, though Athawale initially promised me his party’s candidature,” she said. “The leaders, typically, said, ‘You are a woman, why do you want to be a martyr?’” She anticipated a tough battle against Bhonsle, but said she had the support of ordinary workers and citizens fed up with rising prices, irregular water supply, frequent power cuts and bad roads. “These are the real election issues, and I am confident of putting up a tough fight,” she said.
Madgulkar might find assurance in the fact that a section of Bhonsle’s electorate turned against him in 2012, when farmers alleged he had usurped nearly 10,000 acres of fertile land spread across 22 villages in his constituency. They alleged that alterations had been made to land records in 1997, while Bhonsle was a BJP legislator and the state revenue minister, and they produced records dating back to the 1930s to substantiate their claim. While the controversy remains unresolved, the Shramik Mukti Dal’s Patankar said he was confident that Bhonsle would respond fairly. “We discussed this and Udayanraje has reiterated it would be resolved without causing further trouble to the farmers,” he said. “Let’s wait till the elections are over. We won’t spare anyone. We will not be intimidated, and will picket the royal palace if needed.”
Bhonsle’s election affidavit mentions a long list of cases, including numerous instances where he has agitated against the administration on behalf of the region’s people, as well as a petition challenging his acquittal in the murder case. “I was advised to take legal recourse and have the cases removed, but why should I?” he said towards the end of our meeting at Hotel Maharaja Regency. “I don’t care a damn. What is right is right. I am not imposing myself on anyone. I am not asking you to bow or fold your hands before me, say namaste. I am being what I am.”