Mumbai: After Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said Tuesday that he had decided to step down as party chief, all hell broke loose.
Party workers who had gathered at the YB Chavan Centre auditorium for the release of their party supremo’s updated autobiography, ‘Lok Maze Saangaati [People, My Companions]’, broke into tears. MLAs and MPs offered their resignations, and senior leaders took the microphone to publicly appeal to Pawar to “take his decision back”. All, except one.
While senior party leaders such as Praful Patel, Jayant Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal, Jitendra Awhad, Dilip Walse Patil, and several others said the NCP chief must stay on as their president, Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar took a different line.
When party workers urged “Ajit dada” to appeal to his uncle to reconsider his decision, he said, “You all can appeal if you want, but with me and Supriya (Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule), is he (Sharad Pawar) going to listen to us?”
Instead, the former deputy chief minister said a committee of senior leaders, as suggested by Sharad Pawar, will take a decision on succession. It is better, he added, that the next president of the party is finalised while Sharad Pawar is still around and active.
Speaking to party workers at YB Chavan Centre, Ajit Pawar said, “You are all misunderstanding. Pawar saheb not being president doesn’t mean he won’t be in the party. Today, the Congress president is Kharge (Mallikarjun Kharge). But, the Congress is being run by Sonia ji (Sonia Gandhi).
“Considering his age, we are thinking about saheb and everybody else and trying to give the party’s reins to a new leadership. This leadership will work for the party under saheb’s mentorship. Any fool also will be able to tell that saheb is the party.”
After the Baramati MLA’s speech, when a party worker still took the microphone and raised slogans in favour of Sharad Pawar continuing as NCP chief, an irate Ajit Pawar whisked the microphone out of his hands and told him to keep quiet.
When the crowd of party workers pushed Baramati MP Sule to request her father to stay on as party president, Ajit Pawar interjected saying, “Supriya, you don’t say anything. I am your elder brother. I have the right to tell you.”
The junior Pawar’s statements could have been construed simply as a family insider and senior party MLA supporting his uncle’s
decision, had there not already been talks of friction brewing between the two for years over the party’s succession.
Talks of this rift had thickened over the past two weeks, with Ajit Pawar’s cryptic moves and statements lending themselves to speculation about him trying to split the NCP and join hands with the BJP.
While Ajit Pawar had denied these talks, the NCP is known to have multiple power centres eyeing a bigger role in the party — Supriya Sule, Ajit Pawar, as well as NCP Maharashtra president Jayant Patil, who has cultivated his own circle of party supporters ever since he became state chief in 2018.
Last week, 82-year-old Sharad Pawar, at a party function in Mumbai, said that “it’s time to spin the bread on the oven”.
The karyakartas reluctantly vacated the auditorium after NCP leader Praful Patel and Ajit Pawar repeatedly appealed to them, saying they will meet Sharad Pawar at his residence, Silver Oak, Tuesday evening and make him reconsider his decision to step down.
After the meeting, Ajit Pawar and Supriya Sule jointly told party workers and reporters that “Pawar saheb said he will take 2-3 days to think over the request”. They requested the karyakartas to stop their protests.
At least two party sources said that Sharad Pawar’s move could be aimed at consolidating his grip over the party and draw a wave of support at a time when there’s speculation that Ajit Pawar may split with his loyalists if he thinks his ambitions are not being accommodated within the NCP.
Also Read: Bargaining within NCP? Overtures to BJP? The curious case of Ajit Pawar’s political moves
Why Sharad Pawar said he wants to call it a day
In his 25-minute speech at the YB Chavan Centre, Sharad Pawar suggested that the party form a committee of senior leaders to decide the future course of the NCP after his resignation.
The committee includes Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, K.K. Sharma, P.C. Chacko, Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil, Supriya Sule, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse Patil, Anil Deshmukh, Rajesh Tope, Jitendra Awhad, Hasan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, and Jaydev Gaikwad.
Sharad Pawar said the committee will also have ex-officio members — Fauzia Khan, president, Nationalist Mahila Congress; Dheeraj Sharma, president, Nationalist Youth Congress; and Sonia Duhan, president, Nationalist Youth Congress and Nationalist Students’ Congress.
Speaking at his autobiography’s release, Sharad Pawar said he had not known another person — with the exception of the late Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Karunanidhi — who has worked in either the state legislature, Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha for 56 consecutive years.
“Fortunately, Maharashtra’s people have never shown me the road to failure,” the three-time former Maharashtra CM said.
Speaking at YB Chavan Centre, Sharad Pawar said he formed the NCP in 1999 and has been helming it for 24 years. Pawar said he will not stand for elections once his term in the Rajya Sabha expires.
“In the three years that are left of my tenure, I want to focus more on the state and the nation. I will not take any other responsibility. I have been in politics from 1 May 1960, and now it is 1 May 2023. In such a long period, one should also think about taking a step back,” Sharad Pawar said.
In the same breath, he added that he has decided to “retire as NCP president”. A second’s stunned silence followed, and then there was a clamour of objections from the gathered party workers.
Pawar said he intends to give more time to issues related to education, farming, cooperatives, and sports, among other things.
He added, “I am not retiring from public life. Wherever I am, whether in Mumbai, Pune or Baramati, I will always be available for people to meet from morning to night.”
‘Decision unacceptable’
Even senior party leaders said they were caught unawares about Pawar’s decision to step down. Party sources said only Pawar’s wife Pratibha Pawar knew what he was going to announce in his speech at the release of his updated autobiography.
Whether his daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar were consulted is still unclear.
But Ajit Pawar, while speaking to party workers, said that Sharad Pawar had earlier decided to announce his decision on 1 May, but put it off due to the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA’s) joint rally at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex.
At the YB Chavan Centre, NCP state president Jayant Patil got up to speak, but broke down. He said, “Pawarsaheb keeping the chief post of the party is not just important for the state, but also important for national politics and even for people from different states. Today, the NCP is known because of Pawarsaheb. Pawarsaheb doesn’t have the right to move away so suddenly. He doesn’t have any right to directly take such a decision. I am requesting him on behalf of all of us to take this decision back under any condition.”
Senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal said Sharad Pawar’s advancing age as a reason for him stepping down as party president is “unacceptable”.
“Even today, you work ten times more than anyone else. The party, the state, the country need you, and you taking this decision at such a time, we cannot accept it,” Bhujbal said.
Sana Malik-Shaikh, daughter of NCP MLA Nawab Malik, who is behind bars in connection with an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe, said she looks at Sharad Pawar as “a father in her father’s absence” and urged him to take his resignation back.
A party leader who did not wish to be named, while speaking to ThePrint, expressed concern that Pawar’s announcement has come at the wrong time, considering the Lok Sabha elections are just a year away. “The party workers will get so demotivated that they will stop working,” she said.
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