Quells rebellion, yet again outwits nephew Ajit; daughter Supriya emerges stronger
In his autobiography, “On my Terms: From Grassroots to the Corridors Of Power”, published on his 75th birthday, Sharad Pawar (now past 82) wrote that in life there can be a comma, or may be a semi-colon, but “never a full stop”. While releasing the updated version of his Marathi autobiography, “Lok Maze Sangati” (People are My Companions) on 2 May, which marked the 63rd anniversary of his entry into active politics as a Youth Congress leader in 1960, he decided to punctuate his career with a semi-colon by announcing that he was stepping down as president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). His dramatic announcement led to hysteria among his followers—leaders broke down and pleaded that he revise his decision. Apart from nephew Ajit Pawar, who maintained a stoic stance amidst tear-jerking colleagues and seemed to endorse the quit decision, the rest of the leadership and NCP rank and file went into a hysterical frenzy to stop him. Daughter Supriya Sule and confidant Praful Patel received frantic calls from leaders of Opposition parties across the country urging them to persuade Pawar to step back from his announcement. Three days of high voltage drama followed. On 5 May his party’s core group refused to accept his offer. Pawar’s inimitable power-play had worked. He firmly stepped back and announced that under pressure from his followers he was resuming his political march forward. Sans full stop.
With 63 years of public life behind him, which includes 56 years as a legislator or parliamentarian, Sharad Pawar is the Bhishma Pitamaha of India’s politics. Thus at the end of the four-day drama Pawar emerged not only as the mythical Atlas holding up NCP and Maharashtra’s Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) but also as the possible fulcrum of nationwide opposition groups. The focus shifted from Nitish Kumar’s Patna-based moves to Pawar’s Machiavellian presence in Mumbai. Incidentally, Pawar’s power-play coincided with Italian philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli’s birth anniversary. (Machiavelli, whose treatise “The Prince” is a masterpiece on political skulduggery, was born in Florence on 3 May 1469.)
Pawar’s 2 May announcement, though deemed as “surprise”, was perhaps foretold by his Lok Sabha MP daughter Supriya Sule, a fortnight back when she hinted at two impending “tremors”. The Supreme Court judge hearing the petition for disqualification of 16 Eknath Shinde group Shiv Sena MLAs is retiring on 15 May—thus a decision is likely prior to that date. In the eventuality of the 16 being disqualified the Shinde-BJP coalition in Mumbai will be brought down to a wafer thin majority. Ally BJP, which withdrew Devendra Fadnavis and let Shinde be CM, seems none too happy with the performance of the present CM and thus the talk of a change has been in the air. NCP’s legislature leader, nephew Ajit Pawar, who had defied uncle Sharad and joined a Fadnavis-led, short-lived government in 2019, has been seen as a possible ally by the BJP. Ajit Pawar has asserted that he will “never” leave NCP, but a possibility of him leading a pack out of NCP to ally with BJP and becoming a contender for replacing Shinde had been buzzing in the grapevine. The Sharad Pawar semi-colon has put a full stop to that possibility, it seems. The absence of Ajit at the press conference where Sharad announced the reversal of his move is significant. Fire has been put out. Embers remain.
In his fresh autobiography Pawar has criticised Uddhav Thackrey, who he propped up as CM in 2019 for having quit without putting up a fight. He is critical of Uddhav’s functioning as CM. Ajit had been contender for the post of CM in 2004, when NCP emerged ahead of Congress, but on Sharad’s prompting Congress’ Vilasrao Deshmukh was made CM and Ajit his deputy. In 2019 again when NCP had a chance of putting up Ajit as CM, Sharad, who was a close friend of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, preferred Uddhav—a decision he seems to regret in “Lok Maze Sangati”.
The four-day Pawar power play saw Supriya Sule emerge as a possible choice for being the future president of NCP while consensus seemed to be that Ajit Pawar be projected as the party’s future CM face in Maharashtra. Praful Patel, the NCP vice president, ruled himself out of the race. Maharashtra party head Jayant Patel, senior leaders Chhagan Bhujbal or Jitendra Ahwad, too seemed to be out of the reckoning. There was a dark horse: Sharad’s great-nephew, Rohit Pawar (son of brother Appasaheb Pawar), who seemed to be lurking in the shadows. Ajit is the son of another brother, Anantrao Pawar. He has been the bulwark of NCP since its inception. His son Parth is also a leader of the party. Like most non-BJP parties, NCP too has a niche for members of the Pawar family.
NCP was founded by Pawar in 1999 after he, along with Tariq Anwar and Purno Agitok Sangma were expelled from Congress for having supported Sangma’s stand in the Congress Working Committee that Sonia Gandhi “having been born outside India” could be a bone of contention before the electorate. To underscore its Indianness, the new party had the prefix, “Nationalist” (Rashtriya) before Congress. Within months thereafter NCP became a partner of Sonia-led Congress in Maharashtra. Sharad Pawar today is the tallest leader in the Opposition pantheon and his penchant for including Congress in a possible anti-BJP front is comforting for the Sonia Gandhi family, which is beleaguered by anti-Congress sentiments of other former Congress outfits like Trinamool Congress and BRS of Telangana and other parties which prefer a “Congress-mukt” scenario. (Sharad Pawar’s counsel is revered by Sonia Gandhi; very recently Pawar’s counsel that Rahul Gandhi should not criticise Veer Savarkar was accepted by the Sonia Gandhi family.) Tariq Anwar is now back in Congress as is a general secretary entrusted with Kerala, which is Rahul Gandhi’s “home state” since he lost Amethi in UP. Late P.A. Sangma later floated his own regional party NPP in Meghalaya—his son Conrad is now CM of that state and NPP is an ally of BJP.
In 1991, when there was a vacuum in Congress following the death of Rajiv Gandhi, Sharad Pawar’s name had figured as a possible prime ministerial face. The choice fell on P.V. Narasimha Rao as Sonia Gandhi, though not formally in politics then, was not comfortable with Pawar. In 1996, when Rao government lost the election, Sharad Pawar became the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha. But machinations in Delhi Durbar saw him bypassed when Congress instead extended support to H.D. Deve Gowda. Pawar has said that he is not in the reckoning if an opposition alliance were to emerge in a position to bid for the top job in 2024. But as he himself says, “there is no full stop”.
In 1991, an imaginary narrative crafted by a senior scribe was popular in New Delhi’s Congress circles: some Congress workers, left in limbo after Rajiv’s death, decided to approach three senior leaders to assess their capabilities of leadership. As coalition era had set in, they decided to pose a simple question to each of them: “what is two plus two?” P.V. Narasimha Rao, who is credited with the dictum that not taking a decision is a decision by itself, told these workers: “You have asked a deep question; it has no easy answer. You ought to go to other leaders as well and find out what they say. Then come back to me. We can find an answer through consensus.” Arjun Singh, who was known to be always suspicious, snapped: “You want to know the answer for what is two plus two? Tell me who has sent you to probe me?” Sharad Pawar, the third leader approached with this query, thought for a while and said, “Barobar hai (it’s okay)—yeh batao karna kya hai, bechna hai ki kharidna hai (tell me what has to be done, buy or sell)?” Sharad Pawar’s propensity for turning crisis into opportunity has been leitmotif of his 63 grand years in public life.