The depths to which politicians sink

Julio Ribeiro

IN his Rubaiyat, Persian poet Omar Khayyam wrote: “And pity Sultan Mahmud on his throne.” That was centuries ago. I pity the young Maharashtra Chief Minister, Eknath Shinde, who now sits uneasily on his chair in Mumbai’s Mantralaya. He had one powerful deputy to consult and worry about. He now has two!

If the NCP is not able to stand on its legs, it will topple, unless Pawar defies his age and offers resistance, which he is trying to do.

Ajit Pawar, nephew of old warhorse and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, joined hands with the BJP on Sunday along with a bunch of fellow NCP MLAs. While Ajit was sworn in as Deputy CM at the Raj Bhavan, eight of his associates were made ministers in the ‘BJP-oriented’ Cabinet. Pawar’s confidant Praful Patel had got himself photographed next to the Governor at the swearing-in. Another Pawar protégé, Dilip Walse-Patil, and a third one, Hasan Mushrif, surprised everyone by defecting. Chhagan Bhujbal, who spent two years as an undertrial in jail before being released on bail, was among the turncoats. He is accused of siphoning off funds earmarked for the construction of Maharashtra Bhavan in New Delhi. When he was Home Minister in the then Congress-NCP government, there were numerous complaints against him of ordering transfers of police officers for cash. I had accused him in this regard in an article and taken up the issue with Pawar, his party boss at that time.

When Devendra Fadnavis was the Chief Minister, he had kept a sword hanging over Ajit’s head in the irrigation scam case involving Rs 35,000 crore. Param Bir Singh was the Director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau when the case against Ajit was finally closed. The Governor was woken up at the crack of dawn in order to checkmate Uddhav Thackeray’s attempt to become the Chief Minister in November 2019. Fadnavis and Ajit were sworn in as CM and Deputy CM, respectively, and they were in office for just three days before Pawar announced that the prodigal nephew had returned to the fold. Within those three days, the corruption case was closed! Many still doubt the tale spun around that defection and the subsequent ‘mea culpa’. Was it Pawar’s sleight of hand, as the old man now wants us all to believe, or was Ajit really carried away by the lure of office?

This time, though, it appears to be for real, though many old Pawar admirers think that the ‘wily Maratha’ will have the last laugh! My view is that this time there is no such chance. The array of NCP bigwigs, many of them with skeletons in the cupboard, who accompanied Ajit to the Raj Bhavan and the obvious fact that the nephew was smarting from the slight of having being downgraded in the NCP hierarchy by his uncle — all this smacks of revenge.

How will these developments play out finally? Shinde will find himself weakened. He will have two deputies breathing down his neck. Both exude more power and heft than he does. Fadnavis is certainly more cerebral. Ajit hails from a more recognised Maratha family compared to Shinde. In the majority Maratha community Ajit is likely to be a bigger draw. This leaves Shinde nowhere to go.

I do not know the reasoning behind this step the BJP has taken to further strengthen its party and weaken the Opposition. It would have been child’s play for the BJP to deal with Shinde, but Ajit will be a different kettle of fish. Of course, if the BJP is thinking of the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, it will be easier for the party to take on the Congress, the NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav), with the NCP (Ajit) and the Shiv Sena (Shinde) being on its side. This contest is now wide open.

Pawar was one of the anchors of the Opposition parties uniting to fight the next Lok Sabha elections on a common platform. Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP and Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao are pulling in different directions compared to the Congress and the others. The promised unity is unraveling. And now, with Ajit’s revolt, the NCP will be considerably weakened. If it is not able to stand on its legs, it will topple, unless Pawar defies his age and offers resistance, which he is trying to do.

If this calculation of fortunes in the Lok Sabha elections is what motivated the BJP to shore up its strength with rebellious NCP legislators, the long-term scenario may not be to its liking. The ‘inter se’ relations between the two Deputy CMs and between the Chief Minister and his new deputy are very likely to sour sooner than later. How this will play out would be interesting.

Interesting also will be how the two new components of the functioning government will adjust to the new dispensation. The BJP has long since given up its self-description as ‘a party with a difference’. It will now have to adjust to the proclivities of its newfound friends. Their itching fingers will soon be on display. That should prompt our Prime Minister to amend his boastful proclamation, ‘Na khaunga na khane doonga’. The second half of the slogan may have to go. Unless, of course, he does not care and repeats things to himself for his own satisfaction to make himself believe what he speaks.

The NCP MLAs who have joined forces with the BJP could constitute the insurance cover for possible second thoughts in the Shinde faction. The reduction in numbers in the MVA tally will certainly make that political combination look like a scarecrow instead of a mighty Opposition force which it was. Analysts and pollsters had given the Maha Vikas Aghadi an edge over the BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) combine in the Lok Sabha elections. With Ajit’s defection, the equations will surely change. But taking into account the mercurial politics of Maharashtra, more developments are not only possible but probable.

Our Prime Minister dubbed India as the ‘mother of democracy’. He should take the lead to ensure that this ‘mother’ is given due respect. He can request the Election Commission to disqualify from holding office for five years all members of political parties who defect en masse mid-term. Only then will the ‘mother of democracy’ survive.

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