When veteran leader Sharad Pawar recently stated that there was no immediate need for the Maha Vikas Aghadi to name a Chief Ministerial candidate for the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls, it is obvious that he has some plan up his sleeve. The wily battle-scarred Maratha, never speaks without a purpose and his every statement needs to be read carefully in order to understand his intent and the latent agenda which he has up his sleeve.
Pawar, like Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal, is amongst the most unpredictable political characters in the political arena of the country. It is very difficult to read their mind and anticipate their moves. Pawar’s logic is that any party which gets the maximum number of seats after the declaration of the results, should get its leader elected as the next Chief Minister.
Now the question is that the Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, is certainly not going to be the largest political party amongst the constituents of the MVA, and presuming it is, the question would remain, whether it would be sticking with the alliance or also simultaneously exploring other options.
The suspicion arises since the other faction of the NCP, led by Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, is a part of the Maha Yuti, which is in power in the state under the leadership of Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party. There are many Maharashtra experts, who believe that Ajit Pawar and the rest of the leaders who left with him, did so after obtaining the clearance from Pawar senior. The reason being that Pawar senior wanted that cases against his colleagues should be withdrawn or diluted, and once that was done, they could do business as usual with political parties in accordance with his wishes. The possible reasoning for having this thesis is that while Pawar senior’s party would contest with Maha Vikas Aghadi, the other faction would be in the fray as a component of the Maha Yuti. After the polls, if the situation so arose, they could unite and thus constitute a big bloc in the Assembly, which would help in increasing their bargaining power when the question of who the Chief Minister should be came up.
The other possibility which could also crop up is that the Pawar senior’s faction could also be open to a tie-up with the BJP, if that would help in bringing them to power with their nominee being the Chief Minister. Ajit Pawar has demanded that his party should be given at least 60 seats by the BJP and he has himself expressed his reluctance to contest the polls. His hesitation may be there since in his estimation, the Maha Yuti may end up on the losing side.
In the entire NCP saga which took place leading to a split, Pawar and his uncle’s relations were apparently strained, but there is no guarantee that the two could not come back and unite in the future. Sharad Pawar is a master strategist and while he would want to remain a player nationally, at the state level, his desire would be to see his daughter Supriya Sule taking over as the Chief Minister at some stage. For this, he would be prepared to do business with anyone including the BJP. However, he has his limitations, and knows that his influence has diminished and is not in the entire state but in some pockets only.
Even before the MVA came into existence and the NCP and Congress were the alliance partners, Pawar was dependent on the grand old party for the success of his nominees. When Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser called the shots, Pawar would in the negotiations manage to secure some of the winning seats of the Congress from him to help in increasing his numbers.
This had happened in 2004 Assembly polls, where Ahmed Patel had given such seats to Pawar and in the end, the NCP ended up getting 71 seats, two more than that of the Congress with three Left candidates, who had the Congress support also winning. Patel had a very close bond with Vilasrao Deshmukh, whom he wanted to make the CM and his explanation to the Congress president to deny Sushil Kumar Shinde, a full term was that under him, the party had secured two seats less than that of the NCP. Surprisingly, Pawar never staked his claim for the CM-ship, since he did not wish to give his nephew the position, which would have made him a major player without him in the future. Now Pawar wants Supriya to take over and therefore, if it would amount to breaking away from the MVA, he would be open to the idea.
The Congress is doing well but today lacks both a leader of stature as well as the organizational network. Under these circumstances, the MVA should collectively declare Uddhav Thackeray as the CM face. The Shiv Sena (UT) cadres are very passionate about winning the polls and their efforts would also help both the Congress and the NCP to win many seats.
The election, which is likely to be held in early November, would liven up and Uddhav’s projection would provide clarity to the future politics of the State. There may be some Congress leaders who could raise the question of ideological incompatibility but that stage is long over. Like Uddhav has said, that defeating the Maha Yuti should be the
overriding priority. Between us.