Sharad Pawar has proved that he is a rare politician with the power of personal friendships cutting through the political spectrum that can help script an alliance of opposites. There are very few such personalities in Indian politics that can reach out and be trusted by all sides to be architects of difficult alliances.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a politician, like Pawar in a quest for power and position, to be alliance makers.
The late actor-journalist Srinivasa Iyer Ramaswamy, better known as Cho Ramaswamy, scripted several pre poll alliances in Tamil Nadu in the last three decades. He did not do it for power or position, but because he believed it was right and he did it with his legendary wit!
In 1996, late Cho Ramaswamy played a key role in bringing together an opposition alliance against AIADMK supremo and then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa.
Cho was a personal friend to Jayalalithaa from her days as an actor. But that did not stop him from opposing her vociferously when her first tenure as chief minister (1991-96) turned into an authoritarian and corrupt display of power.