Mumbai: No more conspicuous silences or veiled digs. In his first show of strength since he split the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and joined the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar unequivocally articulated insecurities he felt within the party led by uncle Sharad Pawar.
Speaking at the first meeting of the party’s rank and file since taking oath as deputy chief minister, the NCP MLA from Baramati said, “Amhi konacha poti janmala alo, gyat kay chuk ahe amchi? (How is it our fault that we were born in someone else’s womb?).”
The statement summed up all of his supposed issues with the NCP’s leadership — not being given an opportunity to lead the party, and that Sharad Pawar preferred his daughter Supriya Sule to inherit his legacy and not his nephew, who has been in politics since 1991.
A total of 32 NCP MLAs and seven MLCs attended the meeting of the Ajit faction, party sources told ThePrint.
On Wednesday, the junior Pawar did not hold back. He slammed his uncle for refusing to retire and make space for him in politics, for holding talks with the BJP and then making U-turns, and for surrounding himself with leaders who did no work to expand the party.
He, however, insisted that he still considered Sharad Pawar his deity and place of worship, and urged the octogenarian to reconsider his decision to oppose the extension of support to the BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
“I took a backseat a lot of times, I was sidelined a lot of times. I tackled all the googlies thrown at me. I am a karyakarta (worker). If something is possible, I say yes immediately. I don’t like to make my karyakartas suffer for no reason,” Ajit Pawar said at the meeting.
Appealing to his uncle to reconsider, he said that the NCP founder has surrounded himself with some leaders because of whom the party is suffering — being seen as a veiled reference to NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad.
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‘He’s your father too’, says Supriya Sule
NCP working president and Baramati MP Supriya Sule responded to cousin Ajit Pawar’s criticism at a separate meeting held at the YB Chavan Centre in Mumbai’s Nariman Point. “He (Sharad Pawar) is not my father alone, he is also yours. Don’t say anything about father, mother,” Sule said.
She added, “When you say to your father that you stay at home and give us your blessings, it is better to be a woman (instead of a son). Daughters stand by their fathers in times of struggle.”
Last month, Sharad Pawar virtually anointed daughter Supriya as his political successor by making her one of the party’s two working presidents, along with Rajya Sabha MP Praful Patel. Sule was also given charge of the party’s Maharashtra unit and central election authority.
Speaking at the meeting, which was attended by 16 NCP MLAs and one Independent, former Union minister and Maharashtra chief minister Sharad Pawar refrained from responding to his nephew’s criticism, but underlined that the NCP cannot function as a party without its founder.
“In their meeting today, the biggest photo they used on stage was mine. They used several posters across Maharashtra and used my photo. They know that it won’t work without my photo,” said 82-year-old Pawar.
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‘U-turns with BJP’
Addressing NCP legislators earlier in the day, Ajit Pawar had said that the party had talks with the BJP multiple times since 2014 to explore the possibility of an alliance, but Sharad Pawar always backtracked.
Prior to the general election in 2014, BJP and NCP leaders had in a meeting discussed an arrangement according to which the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP would get an equal share of Maharashtra’s 48 parliamentary seats, he said.
He added that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari was keen on this arrangement, but other leaders were not, which is why the talks did not go forward.
“In 2014, after the elections, we were all sitting at Silver Oak (Sharad Pawar’s Mumbai residence). Praful bhai (Praful Patel) said we will back the BJP government from outside. We were told all of us should go to the BJP’s swearing-in ceremony at Wankhede stadium. All of us went there. PM Modi knows me, I know him. He exchanged pleasantries, also spoke to other leaders such as Bhujbal saheb. If you (Sharad Pawar) didn’t have to go with them, why did you send us for the swearing in ceremony,” Ajit Pawar asked.
The five-time deputy CM said that in 2017, when the BJP was sharing power in the state with the undivided Shiv Sena, there was a discussion to bring the NCP on board too at Varsha, the Maharashtra CM’s official residence.
“All portfolios etc. were discussed. I will never lie to the people of Maharashtra. Sunil Tatkare was called to Delhi. We had a meeting with them (BJP leadership). They said we will not leave Shiv Sena, our ally for 25 years. The government will be that of the BJP, NCP and Shiv Sena. Our leadership said we don’t want Shiv Sena, it is a jatiwadi (casteist) party,” Ajit Pawar said, questioning how his uncle decided to join hands with the same “jatiwadi party” two years later in 2019 as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).
The MVA, an experiment orchestrated by Pawar, comprises the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), NCP and Congress.
In 2019, before senior Pawar firmed up the MVA, Ajit Pawar said BJP and NCP leaders had sat together at “a big industrialist’s house” and finalised discussions. “There were five meetings. I was told not to speak anywhere. You know what happened after that. While all of this was going on, suddenly, things changed and we were told no, we will go with the Shiv Sena (then undivided),” Ajit Pawar said.
Then again last year, before Eknath Shinde was sworn in as CM, there were another round of talks between the BJP and NCP that did not work out, he added.
Ajit Pawar said MLAs were unhappy being out of power as they were not being able to get various works done in their constituencies.
“We cannot sit in the Opposition and take Maharashtra forward. If we can sit in the government and get people’s work done then why shouldn’t we,” Ajit Pawar said.
‘Will you ever stop?’
The 62-year-old Pawar, who has retained the Baramati assembly constituency since 1991, said his name is counted among the most capable leaders in Maharashtra, and yet his uncle did not make space for him and give him his blessings.
“If you are growing old, at 82, 83, will you ever stop? Give us your blessings? He said in a meeting that ‘I will resign. I will form a committee and all of you — Praful bhai, Tatkare, Jayant Patil, Dhananjay, Mushrif all of you sit and make Supriya the national president’. We were ready. That was also acceptable to us,” said the deputy CM.
In May this year, Sharad Pawar had in an unexpected announcement to the party cadre said he had decided to retire as NCP president. All party leaders had broken down with the exception of Ajit Pawar, who supported his decision. After protests by party workers, the senior Pawar took back his decision and decided to continue in the post.
“In any job, people retire at 60 or 65. In politics, in the BJP, leaders retire at 75. Now the young generation is coming forward, you give your blessings. If the person errs, say you erred, we will correct our mistake and move forward,” Ajit Pawar said Wednesday.
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‘Those who want to leave can go’
Speaking at YB Chavan, meanwhile, Sharad Pawar attacked the rebel NCP leaders and criticised the BJP for its “divide and rule” politics, but refrained from responding to Ajit Pawar’s criticism.
“Those who want to leave can go and we will fight back with a stronger vigour,” he said.
“Those who call me Pandhurang and Guru and then say that I didn’t pay any attention to them, this is funny.”
At a time when Ajit Pawar’s faction has staked claim on the party and symbol, and submitted an affidavit to the Election Commission, senior Pawar assured his party workers that they will not lose the party’s name and symbol, a clock showing 10.10 am, the time at which the NCP started its meeting on 17 June, 1999, when it adopted the party constitution.
But he also reminded party workers that in the past, he has worked on many symbols — cow and a calf, Congress’s hand, and eventually the clock of NCP. “If the ideology of the workers is with the party, let me tell you then there is nothing to worry,” he said.
The octogenarian slammed the BJP, saying: “We can’t go with someone who is dividing the country on religion and caste. We need to throw them out and strengthen the NCP.”
He further cited examples of states such as Punjab and Andhra Pradesh to show how the BJP has “destroyed regional parties for its own benefit”.
Before ending his speech, Sharad Pawar recited two lines of Suresh Bhatt’s poetry: “When we were expecting it to be dawn, it turned out to be a nightmare. But let’s again burn those flaming torches of our lives.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)