Maha hurdle cleared, what’s next?

Aditi Tandon in New Delhi

NCP chief Sharad Pawar is back from the cold and how. As principal architect of the quaint Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance in Maharashtra, Pawar, 78, has shown the BJP strategists how tides are turned. Not too long ago, large sections in the saffron leadership had written off the Maratha strongman until he appeared on a campaign stage at Satara, monsoon showers lashing his backdrop.

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Top leaders in the Shiv Sena and Congress concede that the Maha Vikas Aghadi would not have been possible but for Pawar, who kept the coalition flock together.

“Sharad Pawar’s political wisdom powered this alliance from day one, which is why Congress president Sonia Gandhi kept her faith in him till the very end. She trusted Pawar even after his nephew Ajit Pawar switched over to the BJP only to return later. It was Sharad Pawar’s idea to stitch the coalition and his confidence counted in ensuring that Sonia Gandhi came around despite initial hesitations,” a Congress insider says. 

It was because of Pawar’s insistence that Sena broke away from the NDA at the Centre and its minister Arvind Sawant quit on the eve of the Aghadi formation in Maharashtra.

“While the Congress insisted on secularism as the mainstay of the common minimum programme, Pawar offered a conditional pact and demanded that Shiv Sena formally quit the NDA, which it did. The result was a blow to the BJP, which lost a decades’ old ally, ideologically its closest,” says an Opposition veteran.

The chasm in the NDA could boost the anti-BJP camp and revive hopes in the electoral sustainability of Opposition alliances.

As for the NCP, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government could not have come at a more opportune time. While Sharad Pawar has been facing the Enforcement Directorate heat for a while, his trusted aide Praful Patel continues to be embroiled in an alleged money laundering matter with links to Dawood Ibrahim’s aide Iqbal Mirchi.

The state anti-corruption bureau, in what the Congress called a quid pro quo, recently dropped nine irrigation scam cases said to have involved Ajit Pawar, who briefly deserted his uncle to give the BJP a false semblance of real NCP support. The mystery of why Ajit Pawar crossed over to the BJP and then why he returned to the NCP remains unsolved.

What happens next is anybody’s guess with no Deputy CM taking oath yet. “It is unlikely that Ajit Pawar will get that position,” says an NCP leader, “but as we have seen, it’s impossible to predict Sharad Pawar’s moves.”

That said, Pawar’s recent machinations, observers say, will formidably power the NCP in western Maharashtra, its traditional stronghold, and augur well for the Pawar dynasty in which his MP daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar are vying for the Maratha inheritance.

As for Pawar, he has proved yet again that he remains the master at reconciliation. In 1978, he broke ranks with the Congress to become the state’s youngest CM. Later, as the tide turned, he merged the breakaway faction with the Congress. In 1999, Pawar formed the NCP after being expelled from the Congress for questioning Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origins. In 2004, he was back to doing business as a minister in the UPA coalition she led.

Maharashtra, however, presents a unique challenge to the old warhorse — the challenge of racing to the finish. Can Pawar sustain the Aghadi he has so painstakingly formed?