PCMC Polls: A Family Feud Paused to Protect Pawar Territory

Ajit Pawar and Sharad Pawar. 

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. The veneer of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Ajit Pawar and the faction led by his uncle, veteran Sharad Pawar, being two separate entities is slowly coming apart in a rather strange fashion.

Some might feel that it is a comical development exposing the Pawars and their pursuit of power. All is fair in politics and elections. Let principles go to the dogs, goes the logic.

As the race is intensifying between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies to gain dominance over its detractors in the civic elections scheduled on 15 January, the two parties have decided to come together for the elections to the resource-rich Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation in Pune district, the home turf of the Pawars.

Rohit Pawar, MLA of the Sharad Pawar faction, has said that the two parties will join together in the Pune Municipal Corporation elections too.

Pawars’ Shared Turf

Those who argue that it was a shrewd move to keep the BJP out of their fiefdom forget the fact that Ajit joining hands with Sharad was not possible without an informal green signal from the BJP top brass. The civic polls are dubbed as mini-Assembly polls.

It is hardly surprising that the NCP factions joining hands has come a day after Gautam Adani’s visit to Baramati, where the controversial industrialist shared a dais with both the Pawars and hailed the veteran as his ‘mentor.’

Both Ajit and Sharad Pawar have huge stakes in keeping their hold over Pimpri-Chinchwad as well as Pune.

Much has been happening behind the scenes between the two parties in the last few weeks. Prashant Jagtap, heading the Pune unit of NCP’s Sharad Pawar faction, had spilled the beans last week that Pawar and his daughter, Supriya Sule, were pressurising the local units for such an alliance, to project it as a ‘local adjustment’. He joined the Congress to protest against the ‘opportunistic’ politics.

‘Local Adjustment’ Fallout

Interestingly, those in the opposition, including the Congress as well as Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray’s MNS, too, had realised the dilly-dallying by Sharad Pawar’s party over the seat-sharing talks and have got their act together. 

The BJP is playing shrewd politics to contain the Opposition, by directly or indirectly helping the parties of Ajit and Sharad Pawar join hands in the PCMC. This would check the anti-BJP forces, especially the Thackeray brothers, as well as the Congress, which is seeking to get its act together. The move could pave the way for the BJP and the Pawars to join hands in the civic body, if results throw up a hung House. 

Much is at stake for the Pawars in the civic polls in Pune district. Ajit Pawar and his NCP is the ‘weakest link’ in the BJP-led Mahayuti in Maharashtra, which has shown its dominance in the Assembly polls held 13 months back. After securing just one Lok Sabha seat, Ajit has to perform in the civic polls so as to be counted in the BJP scheme of things.

Ajit Pawar’s Test

At 85, Sharad Pawar, who is known as a pragmatic politician, is realising that after being the kingmaker for so long, he has lost not only the plot but the game too. Faced with such a crisis, leaders tend to save face by whatever means. Right or wrong, there is talk that Sharad Pawar will not campaign in the polls.

There has been a section among political observers that has been insisting that the split in the NCP was just a ploy so that the NCP can have the cake and eat it too. Some three years ago, Ajit had joined the Mahayuti and its government days after the Prime Minister had accused him of committing corruption to the tune of Rs 70,000 crore. 

A section of MLAs in Sharad Pawar’s party have been insisting that the party join the NCP led by Ajit. They feel that this was necessary for the development works in their respective constituencies to be carried out smoothly, which, they feel, is not possible if one remained in the opposition. 

‘Running with the hare and hunting with the hound’ has always been the old strategy of Sharad Pawar.

In 1999, a few months after Pawar parted ways with the Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin, his newfound NCP had joined hands with the Congress in forming the next government in Maharashtra and shared power with it for 15 years. At that time, BJP leaders at the Centre used to boast that the NCP is a “reserve force” of the BJP. The Vajpayee government had also given Pawar Cabinet status by making him head of the National Disaster Management Committee.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had on more than one occasion in the past, hailed Sr Pawar as the one who had taught him the tricks in politics, a claim the veteran has never been comfortable with. In recent months, Pawar has not been active on the opposition front at the Centre. Paradoxically, Sharad Pawar is also the architect of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi in the state, which had once kept the BJP out of power. 

Looking at it from a perspective, it is virtually the end of his political game. He is there, but he is nowhere. For Ajit Pawar, meanwhile, it is “the Pariwar has come together.”

(Sunil Gatade is a former Associate Editor of the Press Trust of India. Venkatesh Kesari is an independent journalist. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)