Vilas Undalkar: A 7-time MLA who could end Prithviraj Chavan's CM hopes

Karad (Satara): It was in 2011 when Vilas Patil Undalkar had first refused to vacate the assembly seat for the former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who had returned to state politics in 2010 after the then CM Ashok Chavan resigned over the Adarsh scam controversy. After taking over as Chief Minister, Chavan had to get elected to the legislative assembly. He was keen on contesting the assembly election from his home constituency but had to opt for a backdoor entry after Undalkar refused to vacate his seat. [caption id=“attachment_1749525” align=“alignleft” width=“399”]  Vilas Patil Undalkar is a 7-time MLA from South Karad.[/caption] Now, three years later, Undalkar, popularly known as Kaka in the area, is taking on the former chief minister from South Karad constituency in Satara district as an independent candidate after the Congress party chose Chavan over him. “I have decided to contest the election after the supporters insisted. For the last 35 years, I have always been among the people and worked relentlessly for the development of the constituency. The development has remained my topmost agenda and I will not deviate from it,” says Undalkar, who has vowed to defeat Chavan. Undalkar is most of the time seen in a dhoti and kurta. He does not even carry a mobile phone but enjoys a rapport with people in his constituency. “Undalkar’s connect with the people in the constituency is massive. He knows the people by their first names,” said Shivajirao Jadhav, Undalkar’s supporter, who has been working with him for four decades. “You will find him among the people every day listening to their issues and helping them out. He has been doing this for over three decades,” he adds. Undalkar, who leaves home at 8 am in the morning and returns only late night, holds group meetings and corner meetings till 5 pm and then goes on to addresses public meetings in the evening. “His door-to-door campaign shows the kind of support he enjoys among the masses. For us, his win is a foregone conclusion,” says another supporter adding that we are also collecting funds from the villagers for campaigning. A law graduate, ‘Kaka’ has won seven times from the South Karad constituency since 1980. In 2009, he won the election by a margin of 16,000 votes. He has also served twice as minister - in the 1992 Sudhakarrao Naik government and then in the 1999 Vilasrao Deshmukh government. His supporters say Undalkar does not suffer from any illness. “Since campaigning for the assembly election began, he eats only once at home because he ends up eating a meal at his activists’ home now,” said Rajendra Patil, who looks after Undalkar’s campaigning. Supporters of Undalkar say that his relationship with the Chavan family had soured apparently in 1983 after his group won the election to the Satara District Central Cooperative Bank. They further alleged that Chavan destroyed his family life by falsely implicating Undalkar’s son, Uday, in a murder case. “Uday has been in jail for almost two years now. It has hurt Kaka a lot. But, he has not spoken anything about it and has continued to work for us. Had Chavan asked him to vacate the seat, he would have done it happily. There was no need to resort to such vendetta politics to ruin his life. A lot of injustice has been done to Kaka and we need to teach a lesson to Chavan,” said Adv Ravi Kale, who is actively working with Kaka for over two decades. Many in Karad say Undlakar is set to win the election, pointing out to the NCP support that he is likely to receive. “He has his own base and it has nothing to do with the party. People care for him and not the party,” said A Jadhav, a resident of Karad.