diff --git a/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/rules/python/python_stub_template.txt b/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/rules/python/python_stub_template.txt
index 3c0b1ae0c7184b..d9c84a69b775c8 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/rules/python/python_stub_template.txt
+++ b/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/rules/python/python_stub_template.txt
@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ def GetWindowsPathWithUNCPrefix(path):
     return path
 
   # os.path.abspath returns a normalized absolute path
-  return unicode_prefix + os.path.abspath(path)
+  abspath = os.path.abspath(path)
+  return unicode_prefix + (abspath[1:] if abspath.startswith('\\') else abspath)
 
 def HasWindowsExecutableExtension(path):
   return path.endswith('.exe') or path.endswith('.com') or path.endswith('.bat')