Mumbai: Anantrao Pawar, the “most intelligent of the Pawar siblings”, got expelled from Pune’s Fergusson College for vehemently disagreeing with his professor, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar wrote in his autobiography ‘Lok Maze Sangatee (People, my companions)’.
His parents, Govindrao and Shardabai Pawar, did not take too kindly to this and barred Anantrao from coming home. Much later, Anantrao, who had by then taken up a job at V. Shantaram’s Rajkamal Studios in Mumbai, returned home after his siblings had managed to convince their parents to take him back. Once back, Anantrao took up a specific responsibility in the family — the charge of tending to the Pawar family’s farmlands.
In a way, Anantrao’s son, Ajit Pawar, is reliving what happened to his father, but only figuratively, and in a different context.
Ajit Pawar showed political ambition. He briefly left the home ground to form a short-lived government with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019. He returned, and four years later, he could now very well take on a specific responsibility within the family’s political arena — the charge of tending to the NCP’s politics in Maharashtra.
With Sharad Pawar having announced his intention to step down, the NCP’s rank and file have been persuading the party supremo to take his decision back.
However, some have suggested that if it comes to senior Pawar’s succession, the responsibility could be divided between daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar. Sule, a three-term MP, can handle the party’s national affairs, while Ajit Pawar can be the party’s face in Maharashtra — the NCP’s home turf and its strongest political geography.
According to political commentator Hemant Desai, Sule, having had greater proximity to the NCP chief, being his daughter and privy to his conversations with a multitude of political personalities cutting across parties, has “inherited his ideological richness”.
“Ajit Pawar, on the other hand, has inherited Sharad Pawar’s political acumen,” Desai told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, senior leaders who were considered to be aspirants for the NCP’s top post, such as Praful Patel and Jayant Patil, have eliminated themselves from the race, at least when it comes to the post of national president.
A committee, comprising senior party leaders and key officebearers, nominated by Pawar met Friday morning for the first time and decided to reject the NCP supremo’s decision to step down.
Meanwhile, NCP workers have been agitating for octogenarian Pawar to take back his decision — some with street protests, some with resignations, and others with letters written in their blood.
Sharad Pawar, who has been firm on his decision to resign as NCP president, Thursday showed the first signs of a thaw as he tried to pacify the protesting party workers.
“The decision that I took was for the party’s well-being, for how the party should function tomorrow. And till we are all strongly behind them, we can empower the new leadership. That was the intention,” he said.
“Many colleagues have come even from outside of Maharashtra. They want to talk to me. My meeting with them will conclude by tomorrow (Friday) evening. I will take into consideration what they have to say, and what you all feel and make a final decision in one or two days,” Pawar added. “While doing so, I will not overlook the sentiment of karyakartas (party workers). I promise you will not have to sit like this after two days.”
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The Pawar cousins
The political corridors of Maharashtra have been sporadically abuzz with talks of a rift within the Pawar family over the question of Sharad Pawar’s political legacy since 2006, when Sule formally entered politics by contesting a by-election to the parliamentary seat of Baramati — the Pawar bastion.
The unease over succession, however, has never grown into an open conflict, with the exception of 2019 when Ajit Pawar joined hands with the BJP to form a 72-hour government — unlike in other political dynasties, such as Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray-Raj Thackeray or the BJP’s Gopinath Munde-Dhananjay Munde.
Raj Thackeray and Dhananjay Munde both split from their parent parties over such differences. Raj Thackeray formed his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in 2006, while Dhananjay Munde joined the NCP in 2013.
Party leaders who have known the Pawar family closely attribute this to the concept of family bond and discipline being very strong, with Sharad Pawar as the undisputed patriarch.
The family has a tradition, started by Sharad Pawar’s late mother, that the entire family across generations is expected to gather at one place and celebrate Diwali.
In his autobiography, an updated version of which was released Monday, Pawar has said that at such get-togethers, his mother would hear out her children and grandchildren about any grievances, problems and plans related to their individual lives, and give advice.
This responsibility at the annual Diwali get-togethers is now Sharad Pawar’s.
A senior party leader who did not wish to be named told ThePrint, “Ajit dada will not do anything that might harm Supriya tai. And Supriya tai has always shown respect for her elder brother and never goes against something if he has decided.”
A short glimpse of Sule accepting the authority of Ajit Pawar as her older brother was seen Monday at Mumbai’s Y.B. Chavan Centre.
Amid the tears and protests following Sharad Pawar’s resignation announcement, when party workers urged Sule to take the microphone and appeal to her father to continue as NCP president, Ajit Pawar sternly said, “Supriya, you don’t say anything. I am your elder brother. I have the right to tell you.” And Sule continued to be glued to her seat, her apologetic and tense smile — which she had worn since her father’s announcement to resign as party chief — intact.
And while Ajit Pawar has often fuelled talks of friction within the family with his cryptic statements and moves, sometimes followed by strong rebuttals, Sule has always publicly tried to keep the peace alive.
For instance, in 2006, on talks of cousin Ajit Pawar being unsettled with her entry into politics, Sule had said to India Today, “Blood is not the only thing that makes political heirs.”
And with the latest rift story, which played out over most of last month with speculation being rife about Ajit Pawar splitting the NCP to join hands with the BJP, Sule simply dismissed the same as “gossip” that’s glossing over more important and serious issues of governance.
‘Supriya tai‘
In 2019, when Sule was campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in Baramati, her car zoomed through the western Maharashtra terrain with occasional steep inclines as she rushed from one rally to another.
Another car of young women leaders would trail her. These women would take care of her schedule, press appointments, meals and even open for her with fiery speeches.
Other than a few senior MLAs and functionaries who are loyalists of senior Pawar with a soft corner for Sule, it is these women that form the trunk of the “Supriya tai (elder sister)” camp of the NCP.
They have been groomed by Sule herself as part of the ‘Rashtravadi Yuvati Congress’, the NCP’s cell for young women leaders, which she started in 2012. She has also been instrumental in starting the NCP’s LGBTQ cell in 2020.
Speaking to ThePrint, political analyst Desai explained that Sule’s training for politics was through social work, while Ajit Pawar’s was on the basis of politicking and power.
“Supriya Sule first started working with the Y.B. Chavan Centre organising various workshops and activities associated with various non-government organisations, women self-help groups, much before she launched herself in politics, whereas Ajit Pawar first became an MP, then an MLA,” he said.
Having won the Sansad Ratna award for her performance in the Lok Sabha on multiple occasions, as a parliamentarian, Sule is known to be studious.
She may not yet enjoy the larger-than-life stature of her father as a political interlocutor between different parties, capable of moulding, shaping and breaking alliances, but her colleagues in Parliament talk about how she has inherited her father’s knack for kindling friendships across party lines.
“Supriya Sule is one of those members who has very good relations across the board — with the BJP, the regional parties. It is very similar to Sharad Pawar saheb,” an MP who did not wish to be named told ThePrint.
“She has a knack for resolving issues and taking the lead in starting conversations. She is always outgoing, diplomatic and a good conversationalist. There is no hesitation when someone approaches her,” she added.
Pointing out that Sule is often known to approach ministers in the well when Parliament is adjourned, to talk about a particular issue in her constituency, the MP said, “There is not a single day she skips when Parliament is in session. She has a sarcastic, witty way of retorting without pulling anyone down. That is one quality she takes after Sharad Pawar saheb,” the MP added.
Sule has never expressed ambitions of returning to Maharashtra politics.
Speaking to a group of reporters informally in Mumbai before the 2014 Maharashtra assembly polls, she asked, “Have any of you ever worked in Delhi?” When a couple of hands went up, she said, “Then you would know, it’s a completely different feeling working in national politics.”
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‘Ajit dada’
The 63-year-old Ajit Pawar is very unlike Sharad Pawar or Sule in how he carries himself in public life.
Deep frowns, tart words, and rude dismissals of his followers are all a part of the package that “Ajit dada (elder brother)” is.
His most controversial statement to date — “Should I pee to fill up empty dams”— made at a time when distressed farmers were complaining to him about acute water shortage in April 2013, was a gaffe caused by this very demeanour. Ajit Pawar later apologised for “hurting people’s sentiments”.
NCP members close to him say they see the man beyond the caustic words.
“In reality, Ajit dada is as sweet as the aam ras (mango juice) on my plate,” an NCP leader had once told ThePrint over a Gujarati thali (meal).
Ajit Pawar’s first plunge into politics was in 1991 when he was elected as the chairman of the Pune district cooperative bank.
The same year, he successfully contested the Lok Sabha election from Baramati on a Congress ticket. He let the seat go for his uncle to be elected and instead contested the Baramati MLA seat that year. He has held the assembly constituency ever since.
In those early days, with Ajit Pawar being the only other member of the Pawar family in politics, many had hailed him as the heir-apparent — a notion that Sule’s entry into politics in 2006 shook.
Pawar junior gradually rose through the ranks, serving as a junior minister, then cabinet minister and deputy chief minister on four occasions — the most recent being in the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
If Sharad Pawar is described as a PM-in-waiting, his nephew, who has openly expressed ambitions to occupy the Maharashtra government’s top post, has been a CM-in-waiting.
The closest he came to the post was perhaps in 2004, when the NCP won 71 seats against the Congress’ 69 in Maharashtra, but the former relinquished its claim for the CM post and instead negotiated for some key departments.
Ajit Pawar admitted this to be a miscalculation by his party colleagues in an interview with a Marathi television channel, Ibn Lokmat,in February this year.
According to party sources, Ajit Pawar enjoys the support and loyalty of the majority of the NCP’s MLAs.
For MLAs close to him, Ajit Pawar “is a perfectionist”.
“His day starts at 5 am, he has called officers even at 6 am, and from 7 am onwards he gives appointments to people for meetings. Any work that he commissions has to be perfect. If it is a physical structure, he will look at details such as elevation, material, etc.,” an NCP MLA from western Maharashtra said.
Speaking to ThePrint, the MLA recalled how last year, when Ajit Pawar was still finance minister, he commissioned a Chhatrapati Sambhaji memorial (Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji’s son) at Vadu Budruk village in Pune district, and involved himself in all the details of the project, right from its design.
“Ajit dada is brash when he talks to people, but always apologises if he finds himself to be at fault,” he said.
Another MLA close to Ajit Pawar told ThePrint that the time in which Sharad Pawar enjoyed his political prime, against now, when it is his nephew’s prime time, is completely different.
“At that time, there used to be ideological organisational discussions. Now, you need manpower, muscle and money power and Ajit dada has to think practically at times,” he said.
Ajit Pawar loyalists also agree that their leader has no national ambitions. He doesn’t have a good command over English and Hindi, like Sule, nor does he have equations with national leaders the way she does, they said.
But some agree that if at all Sharad Pawar’s resignation results in a structure where Sule takes charge of the party’s national affairs and Ajit Pawar holds the fort in the state, there could be problems of their own, friction and overlap.
“One cannot have the taj (crown) without being president,” said an NCP leader quoted above in a wordplay over the Taj President hotel property at south Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade, just as he gulped the last bit of ghee khichadi on his Gujarati thali.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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