In 1958, at the age of 18, Sharad Pawar visited the Congress office in Pune to register himself as an active party member. His entire family was ideologically inclined to the Left-leaning Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), though his mother was elected to the Pune local board on a Congress ticket. His brother, Vasantrao, contested the 1960 Lok Sabha bypoll in Baramati on a PWP ticket but eventually lost the election, with Pawar campaigning for the Congress candidate.
In 1962, YB Chavan visited Pawar’s house in Baramati and asked his mother to allow her son to learn under his tutelage. “All of us in the house are aligned to Left ideology, but Sharad has somehow strayed to take your path. I do not have any objection to his going with you if he so desires. My only expectation is that he should always stick to his own convictions and pursue that path sincerely,” she told him. Pawar recalled this conversation in his autobiography titled On My Terms.
One doesn’t know if Sharad Pawar had similar thoughts on Sunday when his nephew, Ajit Pawar, broke away from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to be sworn in as deputy chief minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra. He would not feel overly betrayed by his nephew, though — after all, Sharad Pawar himself had become chief minister in 1978 by leading a rebel group of MLAs against then-CM Vasantdada Patil. He had even defied his patron, Yashwantrao Chavan, at the time. In his 55-year-long political career, Sharad Pawar has done everything it takes to occupy higher offices.
He would, therefore, know that his nephew’s rebellion was only a matter of time. Ajit, 63, couldn’t have waited longer — not after his uncle virtually declared his daughter, Supriya Sule, his successor.
The BJP has reasons to celebrate, of course. It seemed to be on shaky grounds even after splitting Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and toppling the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government comprising the Sena, NCP, and Congress in June 2022. Despite its inherent ideological contradictions and a weakened Sena, the MVA has remained electorally potent. A Sakal Group survey showed the NDA trailing from the MVA by about 8 percentage points. In a bypoll in March 2022, the Congress even snatched the Kasba Peth assembly seat from the BJP, which had held it for close to three decades.
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BJP is happy, but Fadnavis is happier
The BJP couldn’t afford to ignore these warning signals from a state that sends 48 members to the Lok Sabha. It was equally ominous for Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis. A recent newspaper advertisement by the Sena claiming that more Maharashtrians supported Shinde as the CM than Fadnavis must have given jitters to the latter. While the two allies managed to sort it out, this episode sent an unambiguous message to Fadnavis — Shinde is not going to be a pushover, and neither is he treating his job as a night watchman. Moreover, he’s not keeping the CM’s chair warm for Fadnavis but rather looking to stay in the saddle much beyond 2024. Fadnavis might not have bargained for it when he engineered defections in the Shiv Sena and brought the Uddhav Thackeray-led government down.
If Ajit brings enough MLAs — just to provide a majority even without the Sena — it would keep Shinde and his ambitions bridled. It would also give more elbow room to assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide on the disqualification petitions against Shinde and 16 other Sena MLAs. Shinde and his Sena colleagues can’t afford the swagger now that Fadnavis has Ajit Pawar on his side.
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Sharad Pawar down but not out
On the face of it, Sharad Pawar looks outwitted and outplayed by his nephew. After all, Ajit took along with him even hardcore Sharad Pawar loyalists—Praful Patel for one. NCP MLAs abandoning Sharad Pawar and reposing more trust in Ajit to secure their future has to be a very bold gambit. At 82 and ailing, Sr Pawar may not appear to be the best bet for ambitious and insecure politicians, but he is still the last person they would want to upset. The nephew might have a tight grip on the organisation and enjoy support among party leaders and workers, but he doesn’t have his uncle’s mass appeal. Sharad Pawar remains the NCP for many voters and only time will tell whether Ajit has the charisma to wean them away from his uncle.
If the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) mere naming of Sharad Pawar in a money laundering case before the 2019 assembly election made him the face of the opposition and turned the table on the BJP, how would the betrayal of the octogenarian leader by his own party members play out in Maharashtra? Ajit and his camp followers might have decided to take the risk, if only to stave off the heat from investigation agencies for now. Kal ka kisne dekha hai as they say.
After being sworn in as a cabinet minister on Sunday, Chhagan Bhujbal claimed that Sharad Pawar had told his party colleagues that Narendra Modi was returning as the prime minister in 2024, and so, as a positive gesture, he and other NCP leaders decided to join hands with the Sena-BJP government for development.
Bhujbal might be misleading or speaking the truth. But if one were to go by his claims, it would make sense for Sharad Pawar to let some of his trusted lieutenants explore a better and secure future in the BJP even as he works to forge opposition unity in the 2024 election. Such is his aura that he continues to be seen as the PM-in-waiting in political circles. But Sharad Pawar knows better. He looks focused on building his daughter’s political career and making her the true inheritor of his political legacy. With almost all her putative challengers becoming rebels, it would be easier for Sharad Pawar to rebuild the NCP around his daughter. His immediate priority, however, would be to contain the rebellion to a minimum. Ajit’s exit is the motivation he might have needed to prepare for a last hurrah.
Fadnavis may have reasons to believe that he has delivered Maharashtra to PM Modi for the 2024 General election, splitting the Shiv Sena and the NCP in a year’s span. But Maharashtra’s deputy CM has a bigger challenge awaiting in the 2024 assembly election — a CM, Eknath Shinde, looking to stay in the chair for much longer, and, a fellow deputy CM, Ajit, who split ties with his uncle in pursuit of his ambitions. Think of how these three ferociously ambitious individuals would be pursuing their goals in the coming months. If inherent ideological contradictions formed the underbelly of the three-party MVA, conflicting ambitions in the newly formed three-party NDA in Maharashtra make it equally vulnerable.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)