Pawar fighting to retain his hold over party

AT 82, Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar is engaged in a protracted turf war to retain his hold over his party. Mulayam Singh Yadav, NT Rama Rao and Chirag Paswan failed, while the Abdullahs and the Badals were successful in weathering such storms within their respective parties.

Pawar’s move to withdraw his resignation as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief is seen as a victory of sorts over an internal lobby that reportedly wanted to leave the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition, consisting of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and join ranks with the BJP. A closer scrutiny, however, reveals that Pawar was only partially successful in warding off the defection of a substantial section of NCP MLAs to the BJP. The disquiet within the NCP also indicated Pawar’s inability to pass on the mantle of leadership to daughter Supriya Sule when he dramatically announced his decision to quit as NCP president.

All eyes are now on Pawar’s nephew and Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Ajit Pawar, who issued a perfunctory statement welcoming his uncle’s ‘return’ as the NCP chief. Maharashtra’s political watchers view Ajit as someone eager to either take full control of the party organisation or move closer to the BJP. Ajit is reportedly eyeing the big chair in Mumbai’s mantralaya in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling on incumbent CM Eknath Shinde.

The Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench has reserved its judgment on a batch of petitions relating to the feud between the Uddhav and Shinde factions of the Shiv Sena. In the event of the Shinde faction facing disqualification, the BJP would be in an urgent need of support from MLAs who are not part of the BJP-Sena (Shinde) combine. There are also reports that Ajit has had some meetings with top BJP leaders in New Delhi. Interestingly, both Sharad Pawar and Ajit are toying with the idea of touring Maharashtra in order to assess the ground situation. Prospects of a truce between the uncle and the nephew are said to be slim as both sides are clandestinely attempting to sideline the other.

The Pawars seem to be aware that family members and blood relatives staging a coup is not an uncommon phenomenon in politics. In vibrant parliamentary democracies, bloodless yet devastating takeovers by ‘loved’ ones have been experienced by many leaders.

While Balasaheb Thackeray (Shiv Sena), the Abdullahs (National Conference) and the Badals (Shiromani Akali Dal) were able to stay at the helm despite intra-party revolts, NT Rama Rao and MG Ramachandran’s wife Janaki lost their fiefdom in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, respectively.

For Chirag Paswan, a graduate in engineering and a second-generation dynast, his prospects in politics looked as bleak as his acting career. Ram Vilas Paswan’s son had entered Bollywood in 2011, starring opposite Kangana Ranaut in Miley Naa Miley Hum. The film bombed at the box office, even though some viewers appreciated his looks.

He sought comfort in the family profession of politics, where a towering personality, Ram Vilas Paswan, had used his clout to get as many relatives elected as MPs and MLAs as possible.

However, June 14, 2021, turned out to be a ‘Black Monday’ for him. Chirag had once described himself as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Hanuman’ and donated Rs 1.11 lakh for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. These gestures did not come handy when five of the party’s six MPs, including his uncle and cousin, rebelled against him. His uncle, Pashupati Kumar Paras, reduced him to a virtual nobody within the Lok Janshakti Party.

The flamboyant NT Rama Rao made as good a villain as a hero in the 290-odd movies he acted in between 1949 and 1982. Within a year of joining politics, NTR became the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister.

Everything was going fine until August 26, 1995, nine months into NTR’s third term as CM, when his son-in-law and trusted lieutenant N Chandrababu Naidu rebelled against him. Naidu defended his coup, saying that he had been forced to act against his father-in-law because of NTR’s second wife Lakshmi Parvathi’s growing influence over party affairs and the state government. Overnight, NTR was a nobody; his fall was as dramatic as his spectacular rise, as virtually all members of the family and most of the TDP’s 200 legislators had deserted the Chief Minister.

Life had, ironically, panned out exactly as NTR would often say, “What is destined to happen will happen. Victory and defeat are like light and darkness.”

In Tamil Nadu, when MG Ramachandran died on Christmas Eve in 1987, his widow Janaki Ramachandran thought that she would thrive on his legacy. However, her hopes were dashed within weeks. On the day of the vote of confidence, pandemonium broke out inside the Tamil Nadu Assembly, prompting the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to dismiss her government and impose the President’s rule.

After the President’s rule was over, the DMK swept the polls and the AIADMK succession battle settled in favour of J Jayalalithaa, who was MG Ramachandran’s constant companion and the party’s general secretary.

Mulayam Singh Yadav found himself getting checkmated by son Akhilesh. Yadav Senior had bitterly opposed Akhilesh’s move to oust the former’s brother Shivpal from the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet, prompting Mulayam to ‘expel’ his CM son from the party for six years on the grounds of indiscipline. Akhilesh, in response, stripped his father of the party presidency.

Pawar, having seen all this, including Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah getting replaced by brother-in-law GM Shah with the support of some members of the NC and the Congress, knows that his ongoing battle for supremacy within the NCP is grim and perhaps short. Age, resources and the Central Government’s support are clearly not with him. Whether he would attempt a compromise with Ajit Pawar or try to isolate him or simply try to extend the longevity of an uneasy truce is a matter of speculation. A week is a long time in politics.