NCP coup: Is Sharad Pawar playing or being played?

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, July 3

Ajit Pawar’s shock Sunday split of the Nationalist Congress Party begs the question: whether uncle Sharad Pawar, the Maratha strongman who held the reins of the NCP for 24 years, was at sea with the rumblings within.

Though the 82-year-old insists he knew nothing of the rebellion, Pawar’s five-decade-long political career reveals he is anything but a pushover.

Political observers are now asking if the Maharashtra developments signal Pawar’s final move in a long game wherein Congress ex-president Sonia Gandhi has repeatedly trumped him.

With all his credentials (he has never lost an election; has been Maharashtra CM four times; a union cabinet minister for defence and later agriculture), Pawar could never attain the position in national politics that he aspired to. He often found Sonia in his way.

Sonia’s open support to PV Narasimha Rao as Congress prime ministerial candidate following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991 virtually ended Pawar’s PM ambitions.

The veteran says in recent memoirs: “After Rajiv…my name was being considered for the prime minister’s post in Congress circles…but self-styled loyalists of 10 Janpath started saying that Pawar’s elevation would harm the First Family in view of his young age. Once Sonia bought the “bring Rao” argument in 1991, the tide turned against me.”

Pawar cites several instances of distrust with Sonia.

In his book, ‘On my Terms’, the veteran says Sonia did not trust him even though he was among three leaders to visit her residence with a request to accept the Congress presidency after Sitaram Kesri’s unceremonious removal.

“The coterie sought to drive a wedge between me and Sonia by pointing out how I had defied Indira Gandhi to form the PDF government in Maharashtra in 1978. The talk had the desired effect. Sonia did not say much but the distrust was evident,” the veteran acknowledges, adding that during his time as leader of opposition in Lok Sabha (until Sonia assumed the post following her maiden election win in 1999), she would often undo his decisions, replacing speakers for initiation of house debates and even changing house committee member lists.

The Sharad-Sonia final break-up happened in 1999 after he formed the NCP following suspension from the Congress. He had shown the gumption to challenge Sonia’s elevation as Congress’s PM face citing her foreign origins and paid the price. The run-ins, however, never deterred a pragmatic Pawar from working with the Congress.

A few months after founding the NCP, he allied with Congress’s Vilasrao Deshmukh to form an alliance government in the state. Deshkumh became CM and Pawar loyalist Chhagan Bhujbal was named the deputy CM. Alliance talks were led by Pawar and his confidante Praful Patel.

Both Bhujbal and Patel have powered Ajit’s latest coup, forcing the question: “Is the Maratha strongman playing or being played?”

After all, it’s the Congress-led opposition that will bear the maximum brunt of a fractured NCP.