Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders who have been close to party supremo Sharad Pawar since the 1980s and 1990s admit that the ‘Pawar brand of politics’ has been a lot about breaking and making alliances, and sniffing out political opportunities even before they present themselves. But they also recall how it has always had a flavour of immense loyalty.
Towards Pawar and from Pawar. And for allies as well as for rivals.
Speaking to ThePrint, one such senior MLA recalled how when Pawar was facing stiff resistance from some Congress leaders in 1991, a senior party leader from the Pawar camp had, at a social event, clutched the arm of a warring camp leader in a seemingly convivial manner. The next minute, there were tears in the eyes of the leader whose arm the Pawar loyalist had held.
“He clutched and silently twisted the arm strongly, in a calm, polite social setting, enough to hurt badly. The message was loud and clear. Leaders in support of Pawar will not tolerate a rebellion against him,” the MLA said.
Thirty-two years later, amid speculation about NCP leader Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar’s nephew, possibly splitting or merging the NCP to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and obfuscation among many of the party’s legislators, these old timers rue the lack of a cadre that can, so to say, twist an arm, for senior Pawar’s sake.
What they also lament is the fact that there is no Lakshman rekha (boundary) between the ruling and Opposition parties in today’s politics. The MLA quoted above cited another anecdote that gives a glimpse of how Pawar likes his politics.
Without giving a specific timeframe, he said, the NCP was in power and the then Thane district collector was probing some irregularities concerning a bungalow of the son of an Opposition leader. This Opposition leader called Pawar, requesting him to ensure that the bungalow remains untouched. “Pawarsaheb casually asked for the file, and that was the end of the file for the time being,” the MLA said.
Today’s political situation in Maharashtra has some resemblance of a few political dramas of the past — unnatural alliances rallying behind Pawar, an anti-establishment flavour, and at times, puzzlement over which way the Maratha leader is really going. The only factor that has changed the ballgame is that the concepts of loyalty and boundaries in today’s politics are no longer the same, political observers and NCP leaders say.
In sharp contrast to the incident of Pawar shielding an Opposition leader’s son, today, NCP MLAs are under “tremendous pressure” from central agencies threatening to probe their businesses and assets and dragging their immediate families into the scope of the inquiries, multiple leaders ThePrint spoke to said. It is this that is fuelling talks of NCP leaders possibly extending support to the BJP one way or the other.
“There are talks going on. Pawar saheb‘s only advice to MLAs is to withstand the pressure for as long as they can”, a second senior MLA and a Pawar loyalist said.
What Pawar is said to have directly told his MLAs, he said indirectly at a party function last week in Mumbai, which Ajit skipped citing prior commitments. “These days, when you go on the field and you see two people fighting, the first says to the other, ‘you stay quiet otherwise I will unleash the ED (Enforcement Directorate) on you’,” Pawar said, alleging that NCP leaders such as Anil Deshmukh, Nawab Malik and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut were “unfairly targeted”.
“All this shows how power is being misused and critics are being silenced. I am appealing to everyone, we have to stay awake. We will have to fight against this. Whatever the cost may be, we should not fall prey to this. And we should stand strongly with our party colleagues who face any injustice,” Pawar said.
The NCP is currently part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, a three-party alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress that Pawar himself had orchestrated in 2019.
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The king of coalitions, then and now
Friction between the Pawar uncle and nephew is not new, as the question over who will be projected as the number two in the party after Sharad Pawar — daughter Supriya Sule or nephew Ajit — remains. It has been simmering, and seemingly boiled over to open rebellion in 2019 when Ajit, with the support of a few NCP MLAs, formed a government with the BJP with Devendra Fadnavis as CM and the Baramati MLA as Deputy CM. The government lasted just 72 hours as one by one, all NCP MLAs returned to Pawar’s fold, as did Ajit. Fadnavis, speaking to Marathi TV channel TV9 Marathi, in February this year suggested that Pawar had then been aware of the Fadnavis-Ajit midnight swearing-in.
A senior NCP functionary close to Sharad Pawar told ThePrint that revolts within the party are not new for him. “He has led them as well as faced them. He has been out of power for more years than he has been in power. But, it didn’t matter because he became his own power centre,” he said.
The Baramati satrap is hailed as the king of coalitions in Maharashtra, fluidly changing friends and foes according to the need of the hour. He had dislodged the very first coalition experiment in the state by stitching his own patchwork coalition of parties to replace it.
In 1978, the Congress (I), comprising the supporters of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a breakaway faction of Congress (Urs), headed by D. Devraj Urs, had formed a post-poll coalition government in the state with Vasantdada Patil as the CM. Relations between the two ruling Congress factions were choppy and there were many on both sides opposed to the alliance. Within months, a rebel group led by Pawar had toppled the fragile government.
He forged an alliance with the Janata Party, the Peasants and Workers Party and the Republican Party of India under the umbrella of the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF), replaced the first coalition experiment with a second, and became the Maharashtra CM for the first time. The PDF, at one point in 1985, also included the BJP.
Some in the NCP draw parallels between today’s situation to the 1985 assembly polls when a majority of the parties in the Opposition rallied behind Pawar against the Congress (I).
That this PDF did not win the 1985 election against the Congress is inconsequential. What sticks is that it gave a tough fight to the Congress at the time. Pawar eventually merged his faction of the Congress with the Congress (I) in 1986.
“In a sense, the formation of the PDF in 1978 marked the decline of the Congress system in the state… Pawar tried to project a progressive and democratic image of the Opposition,” a 2010 paper of the Pune University’s Department of Politics and Public Administration said.
The paper, by Suhas Palshikar, Nitin Birmal and Vivek Ghotale, titled ‘Coalitions in Maharashtra — Political fragmentation or social reconfiguration?’, added, “However, since 1981 itself there were reports about Pawar’s inclination to merge with the Congress (I) because many state-level Maratha leaders were, one by one, joining the Congress led by Indira Gandhi.”
In 1998, Pawar parted ways with the Congress owing to friction within the party for raising the issue of party leader Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. He formed his NCP in 1999, but only to ally with the Congress with which it ruled the state for 15 years.
Abhay Deshpande, political commentator, said there are definite similarities between the situation in 1985 and the situation now. “That time it was anti-Congress. Now the central pillar is the BJP and all parties, including the Congress, are together against it. In 1985, the BJP was part of the alliance despite the obvious ideological differences. Now, it is the Shiv Sena (UBT), despite ideological differences,” Deshpande told ThePrint.
He added: “There is, however, one difference. In 1985, Congress had its presence everywhere. The BJP is still not in that secure place yet. It has reached a saturation point in the states in which it is already strong, and this combination (of Opposition parties) in Maharashtra is so potent that it can really make a difference. So prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP will definitely try to break this alliance.”
Power pressures
Last week, as talks of Ajit’s potential rebellion came to a boil, he gave a 40-minute rebuttal outside Vidhan Bhavan, squarely blaming the media for the controversy. In a way, multiple party sources said, Sharad Pawar may have forced his nephew’s hand with his comments — as reproduced in Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut’s column ‘Rokhthok (control)’ in party mouthpiece Saamana — about there being intense pressure from central agencies and that while the NCP will not join the BJP as a party, “a few people under pressure might quit, but this would be their personal decision”.
Anxious party members, however, point to how former NCP minister Anil Deshmukh was arrested for alleged extortion and money laundering for more than a year, and how his family also had to face the heat. “For six months, he did not know where his sons were”, a close aide of Deshmukh told ThePrint. The Katol MLA, who was arrested in November 2021, walked out of jail in December last year.
Former Deputy CM Ajit is himself facing an ED probe in connection with an alleged fraud related to the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank. The ED, in 2021, attached assets worth Rs 65.75 crore of the Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, alleging that funds used to purchase the cooperative sugar mill were routed through a second mill, which in turn received funds from a company in which Ajit and his wife are majority shareholders. Earlier this month, the ED filed its first chargesheet in the case, but did not mention Ajit and his wife as accused.
The Baramati MLA, however, himself clarified that he had not received a “clean chit” and that the probe was underway.
The second MLA earlier mentioned, known to be close to Pawar, said, “I don’t know for how long MLAs will be able to sustain this pressure. When someone gives you a choice in words as crude as ‘Do you prefer your liberty and family or your political commitment’, it isn’t really a choice.”
The party’s MLAs, NCP sources said, are waiting for two key events to see if the tide in Maharashtra may turn in the MVA’s favour — first, the Supreme Court’s judgment on Shiv Sena (UBT)’s disqualification petition against 16 MLAs of the Shinde camp, and second the result of next month’s Karnataka assembly polls.
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Politics & Pawar family
An NCP functionary told ThePrint, “All this has ensured that any MLA who leaves will be seen as cowering down. And even if 70 per cent of the MLAs leave Pawar today, it will be like handing him a victory on a platter.”
He added that rebellion against octogenarian Pawar at a time when he is actively touring the state and meeting people from the grassroots despite his age and ailments will only whip up a monumental sympathy wave for him.
This aspect of Pawar — constantly being in touch with people, having an eye on multiple things at once and maintaining relations — is also an integral part of the much-touted ‘Pawar brand of politics’ and age hasn’t changed it. Party members talk about how any event or statement out of the ordinary in any of NCP’s constituencies is followed by an immediate phone call by “Pawar saheb”, while an Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) functionary spoke about how not a file moves in the cricketing body without Pawar’s knowledge despite the leader having left the MCA administration seven years ago.
The controversy over Pawar’s remarks in favour of Gautam Adani amid the Congress-led Opposition’s demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into US-based Hindenburg Research’s allegations against the Adani Group, and the intrigue over his meeting with the industrialist last week amid the speculation over NCP’s relations with the BJP are all byproducts of his brand of politics.
In Ajit’s case, it is not just about his own political ambitions, but also that of his son, Parth Pawar. Parth entered politics in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, and till date is the only Pawar to lose an election. He has also made statements furthering the BJP’s political agenda, which at one point resulted in Pawar calling him “immature”.
Deshpande said, “How keen Ajit Pawar is to step out at this point is unclear. The talks were fuelled more by what people around him are saying about him, which raises questions about whether some within the party are trying to edge him. If his own political future is not secure, forget about his son’s.”
Hours after Ajit’s strong dismissal of rumours surrounding his possible departure to the BJP, he shared the stage with his uncle and cousin Supriya Sule at an Iftar in Mumbai. Ajit sat with his quintessential determined undecipherable frown.
Sule, Baramati MP, tried to lighten the mood, asking an NCP functionary sitting next to Ajit if he told “dada (Ajit)” about a joke that they had shared earlier. And when the compere introduced her to the public as “Pawar saheb’s daughter who will take his legacy forward”, she visibly winced.
The moment passed uneventfully. But, everyone in the NCP family knows that it is the question over this legacy that often crops up as a thorn, and lends itself to speculation about Ajit’s next move. And possibly Sharad Pawar’s too.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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