Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president and former union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has stepped up his expose of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Shiv Sena alliance government for its failure to tackle drought conditions in the state.
He has launched “Jail Bharo” (court arrest) agitation to demand immediate relief to debt ridden drought affected farmers in the state. Even before he could launch his much talked about agitation, veteran Congress leader Balasaheb Vikhe Patil launched a diatribe against Pawar holding him responsible for drought as well as dissemination of Congress in the state.
Political rivalry and personal animosity of Pawar and Vikhe Patil is known in Maharashtra. It was Patil whose election petition had put Pawar into real trouble and though both are veteran Congressmen, they always belong to rival power groups within the state politics.
Before launching his agitation for demanding immediate waiver of farmers’ debts, Pawar had undertaken tour of drought hit districts in Marathwada, describing it as one of the worst droughts after 1972 in the state.
Patil had left the Congress and joined the Shiv Sena. He was a minister in Vajpayee government and later returned back to the Congress fold when Pawar was eased out of the Congress and set up his own political party – NCP. He asked Pawar why there is such a pathetic drought condition in Maharashtra when Pawar had been in power in the state as well as in the central government for such a long tenure. He wants Pawar to do retrospection about his own responsible role since he was the Maharashtra Chief minister three times as well as Union Agriculture Minister in UPA regime for last one decade. He hit out at the NCP saying that during Congress-NCP rule for 15 years in the state, the NCP was holding key portfolios like irrigation, power, PWD which are directly related with water and power supply positions in the state.
With the situation in the state over sharing of water between different regions having become very sensitive, Patil hit out at Pawar saying that due to his policies, Beed, Osmanabad and Latur districts from Marathwada had been deprived from receiving their share of water from the Krishna valley. He also alleged that during Pawar’s regime, policy decisions were taken to divert irrigation water for multinational software companies in the state.
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Balasaheb Vikhe Patil’s son, is the leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly. He was a close confidant of former chief minister Ashok Chavan who now heads the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC). Except Ashok Chavan, all other Congress chief ministers were under influence of Pawar who had been building up a support base for the NCP at the cost of the Congress.
NCP state president Sunil Tatkare retorted that Balasaheb Vikhe Patil was criticising Pawar and NCP out of political frustration. He asserted that it was Patil’s habit to keep attacking Pawar once in a while for remaining politically relevant.
There is a war of words going on between the Congress and the NCP. MPCC president Ashok Chavan has also been criticising the NCP for non-cooperation during session. Patil is openly hinting at the Pawar-Modi cooperation in Delhi and state NCP’s efforts to join hands with the BJP in the state. The BJP-SS alliance in the state that is going through a difficult phase is keeping the NCP away from power. The NCP has retaliated against Patil’s frontal attack on their policies saying that Patil, who left the Congress for power and joined the Sena, should not be teaching them lessons of secularism.
The Congress leaders in the state are hinting that the NCP’s agitation against the BJP led state government is being used for two purposes. One is to blame the previous government and try to pressurise the present government that has initiated an inquiry into the irrigation scam. FIR has been filed against NCP stalwart Chhagan Bhujbal while Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare are facing investigations in the irrigation projects.
Apart from Pawar, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray have also visited drought affected areas in the backward region of Marathwada. The Congress cannot keep away from the region. The state Congress is trying to organise a tour of the drought affected region of Marathwada by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Rahul has already visited Bihar, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh- affected by scanty rainfall.
Rahul will be visiting families of farmers who committed suicides due to indebtedness and failure of crops. The state Congress has been demanding a special session of the state legislature for discussing the impact of droughts and long term measures to be taken in the state to provide immediate relief to farmers’ families. The Congress leaders hope that Rahul’s tour will help the party in long run. The Congress is upset as the NCP, in a subtle way, is trying to deflect criticism of previous governments for crop failure by shifting the blame on Congress. In fact, both the parties that ruled the state for the last one and a half decade should share the blame equally.
The Congress is also upset with the NCP for adopting its own policies, unmindful of what suits the UPA leader – the Congress Party. Pawar is aware that it is difficult to run a smaller regional party in Maharashtra when the party is out of power. From time to time, the NCP made it clear that though it is in an alliance with the Congress in Delhi and Mumbai, it has its own freedom to expand its base in Maharashtra as well as other states.
However, once the Congress Party is ousted from power in Delhi as well as in Maharashtra, there is no compulsion on the NCP to remain tied down to the Congress Party. Though opposing the BJP in the state, Pawar is known to have maintained an excellent relationship with PM Modi. In fact, the Congress workers in the state are happy that they have no alliance with the NCP in the state and would get better opportunities to contest the upcoming elections.
The NCP has a strange love-hate relationship with its poll ally- the Congress. It is almost certain that the NCP will maintain its independent identity by neither joining hands with the Congress nor with the BJP. The wordy duel between the Congress and the NCP will continue unabated due to these historic reasons.
Prakash Bal Joshi
