Amidst all the political confusion raging currently in Maharashtra, the question most frequently being asked is whether Sharad Pawar was in the know of Sunday’s revolt by his nephew Ajit Pawar. According to sources, the Maratha strongman was fully aware of his nephew’s high-voltage move from the word go.
The telltale evidence is too huge to be ignored. It is stated in NCP circles that the tumultuous development was scripted on June 1 when noted industrialist Gautam Adani was closeted with the Maratha leader at the latter’s quaint Silver Oak residence at the silk stocking neighbourhood of Bhulabhai Desai Road. This was the second meeting between the two in recent times. The fact that Adani is close to PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah made the twin meetings politically significant.
2nd incident that raised eyebrows
The second incident which raised eyebrows was Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule’s statement that two big political explosions would take place. The first one turned out to be Pawar’s short lived resignation as president of the NCP and the other turned out to be Ajit Pawar’s coup d’etat.
On May 2 Pawar Senior had announced his resignation as the president of the NCP. There were dramatic protests, following which he rescinded his decision, but appointed Supriya and Praful Patel as working presidents of the party. He gave nothing to Ajit Pawar, apparently because he knew that his nephew was going to join hands with the BJP.
Claims around Fadnavis's short-lived stint with Ajit Pawar
It may be recalled that when BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis formed a short-lived government with Ajit Pawar in November 2019, it was with the full blessings of Pawar Senior. This was disclosed by Fadnavis himself. Pawar did not deny this allegation, but accused Fadnavis of letting out a secret. “It is but natural that the second political alliance between Fadnavis and Ajitdada, too, had the fullest support of the NCP chief,” an NCP leader told the FPJ. “Ajitdada dare not do anything against the wishes of his uncle. Else he would be politically crushed,” he added.
Yet another proof of Sharad Pawar’s role is the decision of Dilip Valse-Patil to join the Eknath Shinde government. Valse-Patil has been the personal assistant for several years and he has always conducted himself strictly as per the orders of his boss. The fact that he followed Ajitdada clearly shows that he was only doing the bidding of his boss.
What does Sharad Pawar gain by helping the formation of a BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government?
The question is what does Sharad Pawar gain by helping the formation of a BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government? The cold reality is that the BJP had left him with no choice. The Modi government had got the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to issue a summons to Pawar Senior which shocked him. The ED had also turned the heat on several of his aides like Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Hasan Mushrif, Jayant Patil, Nawab Malik, Anil Deshmukh et al. And the scale of the scams allegedly involving these leaders ran into several thousand crores. Instead of facing a massacre at the hands of the ED, Pawar decided to play along with the BJP since it was the lesser of the two evils. In a way, Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony could well be attributed to the ED’s deft moves against these politicians.
The BJP had earlier effected a vertical split of the Shiv Sena and now it has succeeded in vivisecting the NCP. While the saffron party’s encouragement of Shinde’s revolt was understandable since it wanted to oust the MVA government and capture power, there was no such compulsion in ushering in Ajit Pawar & Co into the corridors of Mantralaya as it has a comfortable majority in the state assembly. The induction appears to be more with an eye on the next year’s assembly and Lok Sabha elections than any immediate gains.
