The Pawar who couldn’t become CM

TENS of thousands of mourners gathered to attend Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s cremation in his home town, Baramati, on January 29. They bid adieu to the man who desperately wanted to become the CM, but couldn’t.

I am reminded of Mark Antony’s speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar, immortalised by Shakespeare in his play: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” Ajit was mired in many controversies during his political career. The most serious among them were the corruption cases filed against him in the Rs 70,000-crore irrigation scam (Ajit had held the water resources portfolio in successive state governments). He was exonerated after he joined ranks with the BJP.

The state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) let him off the hook. Param Bir Singh, who was then serving as the ACB chief and later became Mumbai’s Police Commissioner, had proclaimed that there was no evidence to prosecute Ajit. The general perception among those who were following the cases was that the BJP had given the clean chit to Ajit as soon as he crossed over to its side.

In recent months, Ajit’s son, Parth Pawar, was in the news after Amadea Enterprises, a company of which he was the principal owner, procured land that was meant for the Mahars (a Scheduled Caste) and, hence, could not be sequestered even by sale. Parth’s company had reportedly purchased the land at a throwaway price. When the media published details of the transaction, Ajit shielded his son and the Devendra Fadnavis government again came to his rescue. The land, of course, had to be restored to the Mahar community.

In another astonishing instance of high-handed behaviour, Ajit was caught on camera reprimanding a woman IPS officer for confronting his supporters who had violated revenue laws. She was ordered to take action against violators by the authorised revenue officer, based on the government’s own directives. It was a classic example of a ruling party enacting laws and then expecting the police to close their eyes when those laws were broken!

Ajit’s wife, Sunetra, is under legal scrutiny in the Rs 25,000-crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam; the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is pursuing the case. These examples should make readers wonder if Ajit was akin to the cat with nine lives. Now that a cruel death in an air crash has taken his life, the grief that the residents of Baramati have expressed seems to have obliterated his alleged misdeeds.

It is also significant that Nitin Nabin, newly-installed BJP president, attended Ajit’s cremation along with Home Minister Amit Shah and state party leaders.

Ajit had dumped his uncle and mentor Sharad Pawar in his quest for the CM’s gaddi. The latter had done something similar decades ago to occupy the coveted chair in Maharashtra at the age of 37. Sharad parted ways with his own patron and mentor, Yashwantrao Chavan, and ditched then Congress CM Vasantdada Patil to form the government with the help of legislators who had switched over to his side.

The difference in the two cases is that unlike the Sharad-Ajit relationship, there was no “family” involved in Sharad’s ties with Chavan. Last month, the uncle and the nephew reunited to contest the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal elections. They lost, but the very fact that they got together makes one wonder about their seesaw ties.

Like the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founded by Sharad Pawar is avowedly secular as well as socialist, and ideologically removed from the BJP. Even Ajit, after joining hands with the BJP, made it amply clear that his NCP faction did not subscribe to the anti-Muslim ideology of the saffron party. Some of the candidates he fielded in the recent Mumbai civic elections were Muslims.

Days after Ajit’s death, Sunetra took oath as deputy CM, even as the state government’s prescribed three-day mourning period was nearing its end and flags were still flying at half-mast. Many were shocked at the indecent haste.

I have no doubt that CM Devendra Fadnavis, one of Maharashtra’s shrewdest politicians, was behind this tactical elevation. Ajit’s death had confronted him with the prospect of sustained pressure for political concessions from the other deputy CM, Eknath Shinde, who heads the Shiv Sena faction opposed to the outfit led by ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray.

If Ajit’s faction had joined Sharad’s NCP, as was rumoured, Sharad would have refused to cast his lot with the BJP lest he lost his secular credentials. Now, if Ajit’s loyalists don’t return to Sharad’s fold, their number (40) in the Assembly would keep the BJP in power in case Shinde’s Sena becomes too demanding. Hence the necessity of keeping Ajit’s faction in line.

Jumping ship to join the ruling party is a popular game Maharashtra’s politicians play. Of course, those who are ideologically committed will not do so, but the truth is that they are rare to find in the state. The lure of office or just profit is sufficient for them. Added to that is the more urgent need of avoiding investigations by probe agencies — the sword of Damocles that the BJP hangs over the heads of those with skeletons in their cupboards.