Supriya Sule — Frontrunner to Be NCP's 'Pawar Backup', Champion of Women's Empowerment

Amid speculation that Sharad Pawar is unlikely to take back his resignation as president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Supriya Sule, his daughter and MP from Baramati is emerging as the top contender for the post. The successor will be leading the party into the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in 2024.

Supriya Sule has been active in politics since 2006. She was first nominated to the Rajya Sabha that year and was later elected from the Baramati constituency of Maharashtra in 2009, which she has been representing in the Lok Sabha since then.

In her first Lok Sabha election in 2009, Sule defeated BJP’s Kanta Nalavde by a margin of more than three lakh votes. In 2014, during the Narendra Modi wave, she defeated BJP-backed candidate and former cabinet minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government Mahadev Jankar. She won that election by a margin of 69,000 votes. She has been part of many parliamentary committees, including corporate affairs and standing committees. In 2019, Sule defeated BJP’s Kanchan Kul by a margin of 1.69 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha polls.

As a people’s representative in Parliament, she has raised many issues that matter to common citizens: women, the youth, senior citizens, and farmers. Her performance has been recognised with the award of ‘best parliamentarian’. In 2011, Sule perhaps first time came into the national spotlight when she started a statewide campaign against female foeticide. The campaign included padayatras and college events across the state. During this campaign, she travelled throughout Maharashtra, met women in rural areas, and tried to educate families about this issue.

Following this drive, Sule in 2012 formed a wing for young girls who have the ambition to enter into politics. It was named the Rashtravadi Yuvati Congress. Under this wing, Sule also took up a programme to educate women and girls on a range of issues, including female foeticide, the dowry system, and women’s empowerment.

Other top leaders of the party seem to have paved the way for Supriya by expressing no desire to resist her ascension. At 11am on Friday, an 18-member committee will hold its first meeting in the NCP office to discuss the issue of Pawar’s resignation, and if he is not ready to take it back then decide who will be his successor.

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