New Delhi: Ajit Pawar, a senior politician from Maharashtra and the nephew of Sharad Pawar, rebelled for the second time in four years and joined hands with the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis-led coalition government in the state — a dramatic shift in the political landscape that left his uncle and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) stunned.
Meanwhile, away from Maharashtra, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is considered a master strategist of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was busy with other events.
He virtually inaugurated a cruise service on the Sabarmati river and attended a function to mark the birth anniversary of Sonelal Patel, a Kurmi leader from Uttar Pradesh — but amid all these, he was also closely monitoring the developments in Maharashtra.
ThePrint has learnt that the plan to bring Ajit Pawar into the BJP fold was in place last week itself, when Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde along with his deputy Devendra Fadnavis met Shah in Delhi Thursday — a day before the first anniversary of their alliance government.
However on Wednesday itself, Shah met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president J.P. Nadda for five hours to discuss the strategy for the Lok Sabha election and the changing scenario in Maharashtra, a party source told ThePrint.
“Ajit Pawar was in touch with the BJP for a long time, but he was undecided. He first gave a positive signal in April during the Karnataka elections, but Sharad Pawar sensed his plan and stopped him,” a BJP functionary told The Print.
According to the functionary, Ajit Pawar had told the BJP leadership that the timing was not right and was looking for a good reason to join the party.
“When Sharad Pawar restructured the party and gave charge to Supriya Sule and Praful Patel, he got a reason to make up his mind and formally agreed to break the party and align with the BJP. It was just a matter of time,” the functionary added.
This, however, is not the first time that the BJP brass has managed to break an alliance in Maharashtra. In 2022, it engineered the Shiv Sena party and formed a government with the rival faction led by Eknath Shinde.
This time, breaking the NCP was easier, as Ajit Pawar and many other NCP leaders were unhappy with Sharad Pawar and wanted to join the BJP to escape from the ED and CBI cases against them, the BJP sources said. Ajit Pawar along with his ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Hasan Mushrif were facing the scrutiny of the central agencies over alleged charges of corruption.
“Not only Ajit Pawar was in touch with Fadnavis, but Praful Patel was also in touch with Amit Shah even when Sharad Pawar announced him as working president of NCP. It is not clear whether Sharad Pawar knew about it or not, but he was aware of Ajit Pawar’s meetings with Fadnavis,” another BJP leader from Maharashtra said.
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Pawar vs Pawar
In April, rumours of Ajit Pawar’s exit circulated when he removed the party logo from his social media profile and news of him calling a meeting of MLAs came out.
However, NCP spokesman Mahesh Tapase had then dismissed the speculation saying that Ajit Pawar “was very much in the NCP”.
“I must point out that Ajit Pawar had tweeted a photo of Tatya Tope (a freedom fighter during the 1857 Rebellion) on his death anniversary, which does feature the NCP logo. I do not know who handles Pawar’s Twitter and Facebook accounts and why the NCP wallpaper (with the party logo and Sharad Pawar’s photo) was removed, but I can assure you that there is no problem within the NCP,” Tapase told reporters in April.
On 17 April, Ajit Pawar had reportedly cancelled his programmes in Pune district. There was speculation that he had summoned a meeting of MLAs in Mumbai that day. Later, he issued a statement denying any plan of leaving the NCP, or calling a meeting.
But soon after, Sharad Pawar made a surprise move by resigning from the post of party president on 2 May.
At that time, senior leaders Chhagan Bhujbal and Praful Patel were upset, but Ajit Pawar consoled the crowd and said he was “thinking about handing over leadership to the new leader, irrespective of who holds the position. Party will work under Sharad Pawar’s leadership.”
The next day, Sharad Pawar withdrew his resignation and, in June, announced Praful Patel and Supriya Sule as working national presidents.
That was when, the sources told ThePrint, “Ajit Pawar’s dissatisfaction increased and he decided to switch over and join the BJP.”
But, before Sharad Pawar could intervene, Ajit announced his decision to quit as the Leader of Opposition and work for the party instead.
At the NCP foundation day event, in the presence of Sharad Pawar, he said: “I have served the party in various positions. I did not ask for the post of opposition leader. It was given to me by the party MLAs. But now, I want to resign from this post. I request you to let me work in the party organisation. I will accept any position that you assign me, and I will deliver results.”
But this was not the first time that Ajit has shocked the party. In 2012, he had resigned as the deputy chief minister in the Congress-NCP government and Sharad Pawar had to intervene to resolve the crisis.
In 2022, after Shinde and Fadnavis were sworn in as the CM and deputy CM, respectively, they ran the government for 41 days without expanding the cabinet. They then expanded the cabinet last year, but left 23 posts vacant despite the pressure from Shiv Sena cadres. Fadnavis maintained that it would be done at an appropriate time.
Last week, in several interviews, Fadnavis told reporters that the expansion would be done in July.
“Fadnavis was waiting for Ajit Pawar’s approval to switch over so that the government could be secured from any threat from the aspirants who were demanding early expansion from Shinde’s camp. With this new move, not only did the BJP high command ensure the stability of the government, but also gained more leverage in power sharing and seat allocation for the Lok Sabha elections,” the BJP leader cited above told The Print.
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BJP’s calculations before 2024 LS elections
As the Lok Sabha elections are nearing, the BJP has high stakes in Maharashtra, where the party in alliance with the Shiv Sena and the Republican Party of India (RPI) won 41 of the 48 seats in 2019, leaving only seven for the other parties.
There was a feeling that Shinde’s Shiv Sena was not adding much value to the alliance and repeating the margin of 41 seats was seeming impossible. Sharad Pawar was leading the opposition unity and Uddhav Thackeray still had some sympathy in Maharashtra, despite being sidelined by Shinde, another BJP functionary told ThePrint.
Both Shinde and the BJP knew that they had less than a year to face the general election and a little more than a year to face the state polls in October 2024.
Looking at the seat tally in the Lok Sabha election, the functionary said, the BJP is unsure of winning many seats in Bihar, which has 40 seats, after Nitish Kumar’s switch over.
With 42 and 48 seats, Bengal and Maharashtra are among crucial states for the BJP. While it has 18 MPs from Bengal, there are 23 from Maharashtra. It is crucial for the party to maintain its tally in these three states in the Lok Sabha, especially Bihar and Maharashtra, the BJP functionary added.
According to party sources, some of the state BJP leaders complained to the central leadership last month about the need to boost the morale of the cadres, as they were demoralised on seeing Fadnavis in a lesser role as the deputy chief minister.
But the central leadership told them clearly to maintain a harmonious relationship with Shinde’s Shiv Sena and support them as much as possible. Shah told them that “we are in power because of Shiv Sena and we should not forget that,” one of the sources added.
But there was a growing feeling that “there is a wave in favour of Prime Minister Modi even in Shiv Sena’s seats, but Shinde’s Shiv Sena will not contribute much if there is a fight between Maha Vikas Aghadi and BJP-Shiv Sena. The BJP will protect its seats, but Shinde’s Shiv Sena is not strong in many seats and there is a need to weaken the NCP to win Maharashtra,” the BJP functionary said.
One of the senior ministers of the cabinet, who recently returned from a tour on a weak seat in Maharashtra, told ThePrint that “Prime Minister’s popularity is intact and people love him for his welfare schemes. The only thing missing is the enthusiasm of the cadres. For this, mahaul banana padega (we need to create a wave).”
In 2019, the BJP won 23 seats, while the undivided Shiv Sena notched 18. Of the total 18 Shiv Sena MPs, 13 have joined Shinde’s faction.
Last month, a Shinde faction leader claimed 22 seats from the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, which created uneasiness between the two partners. Although the BJP downplayed the claim, several BJP leaders said Shinde had no strength to win 20 seats, a Maharashtra BJP told ThePrint.
A senior BJP general secretary told The Print that, “This new alliance (with Ajit Pawar) is beneficial for both parties as the BJP was looking to weaken the NCP to get more seats in Lok Sabha and assembly.”
Drawing a parallel with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh, he said the “NCP is like the BSP of UP”.
“Mayawati’s vote share is shrinking and there is competition for her Dalit and Jatav votes. We got most of the BSP votes in the UP assembly elections. Similarly, the NCP has traction till Sharad Pawar is active.”
Regarding the role of Ajit Pawar, the BJP general secretary said: “He was also looking for his future as he is not old like Sharad Pawar. We are also looking for a partner who has a foothold in Maratha politics. Ajit Pawar is an experienced politician and with this combination, we are confident of winning almost all seats of Maharashtra in Lok Sabha and assembly.”
Listing out three benefits of Pawar joining the party, the BJP general secretary added, “We have weakened the opposition unity by splitting the NCP. We have secured the stability of the government in case the Supreme Court disqualifies Shiv Sena MLAs. And we have got an NDA partner for Maratha politics. This way, NDA will be stronger.”
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