These are testing times. Embattled Sharad Pawar is neither combative nor defensive. The ailing octogenarian leader is dazed over what fate has brought before him in the evening of his life.
The "malla” (wrestler) of Baramati, who had been victorious over many an electoral opponent in over six decades of his political career, is now cornered to the core. And there is neither an escape route nor are there many sympathisers.
His daughter and the Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar's (NCP-SP) working president, Supriya Sule, has let the cat out of the bag by suggesting that her party could support the controversial delimitation bill in Parliament if the Lok Sabha seats in all states were raised by 50 percent.
A Veteran Under Pressure
Known as one of the most connected and a pragmatic politician, Pawar faces a stark dilemma. If he succumbs to the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) pressure, he will forfeit all the political heft and goodwill he has earned, and he will become directly or indirectly a vassal of the Modi-Shah darbar, whether he likes it or not.
It is not that the opposition veteran had not got informal invitations to join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the past, but he had kept his distance while insisting that he believes in the thought of Gandhi and Nehru, suggesting that he would remain a Congress-minded politician. Pawar had parted ways with the Congress in 1999 on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin.
Rejecting the resurgent BJP’s advances is fraught with danger. The saffron managers have already hollowed out a section of his parliamentary as well as legislative party with its usual tactics of lure as well as coercion.
Most of the party MPs and MLAs do not see much future with Pawar, whose condition is like the mythological Bhishma, lying on a bed of arrows. Supriya Sule might be No. 2 in the party but hardly has the strategy and organisational skills of the father to keep the flock together.
Failure to choose a proper successor had resulted in Pawar losing more than half of his legislative party in the state, with his ambitious nephew, the late Ajit Pawar, staging a revolt ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and joining hands with the BJP to become the Dy CM of Maharashtra.
It was the first jolt given by the BJP to Sharad Pawar, whose politics in the last 40 years has been aimed at marginalising the Congress on the one hand and targeting him on the other. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah knew well that the way ahead for the BJP in Maharashtra was not possible without subjugating/neutralising the veteran completely and wholly.
It is not that the PM had not tried to woo the veteran leader earlier. A decade back, Modi had publicly stated at a function in Baramati that he learnt politics by holding the hand of Pawar, a remark with which the opposition leader was not that comfortable. The remark had more than signalled BJP’s readiness to do business with him, reflecting how much he was worth in its eyes.
Pawar had his sweet revenge on the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls by fashioning a formidable opposition response of the Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising the Congress and the Shivsena led by Uddhav Thackeray along with his party. The Aghadi won some 30 out of the total 48 seats in the state, handing a humiliating defeat to the ruling NDA, which was boasting of securing 400 seats in the 543-member House. Ajit Pawar’s party could secure just 1 seat.
It is to the credit of the veteran leader that he remained central to the politics of Maharashtra for more than four decades, whether he remained in power or not. Baramati, his home turf, has always been considered the powerhouse.
He brought the first non-Congress government in the state by forming the Progressive Democratic Front in July, 1978, to become the youngest CM till then. The undivided Janata Party, of which the erstwhile Jan Sangh was a part, was among the coalition partners.
A Strategic Mistake
Pawar made the strategic mistake of not merging his party with the Congress after the last Lok Sabha polls believing that he could weather any storm even at this advanced age. It was a miscalculation of the BJP’s strategy.
The Congress, on its part, did not make any moves to woo Pawar, declaring let bygones be bygones, considering the value and worth of the veteran. The grand old party has remained weak in strategy in recent years and has failed to fully grasp the politics of Modi-Shah.
In Marathi, there is a saying, “mhatari melyache dukh nahi pan kal sokavato” (There is hardly any grief over the passing away of the old woman, but what is worrisome is that Time or the God of death will become more demanding).
Legacy or Survival?
Similar is the predicament of the opposition INDIA bloc over Pawar’s party’s stance given the fact that the NCP-SP is a key partner in the opposition alliance. Its giving away could open the floodgates for other partners to follow suit, giving one alibi or another.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), though no longer part of the INDIA bloc, too, is keeping the options open on the controversial bill, is indicative of the change of the political weather ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament.
It will soon be clear what Pawar decides, and the decision would reflect on what legacy he would leave. The politics of maintaining balance between rival sides at the national level, mastered by the veteran for a long time, is near the expiry date.
The BJP’s politics under Modi-Shah have been ruthless to the core. If you are not with us, you are against us. No one can sit on the fence.
(Sunil Gatade is a former Associate Editor of the Press Trust of India.Venkatesh Kesari is an independent journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)