On April 18, Supriya Sule, MP and the urbane daughter of Sharad Pawar (82), told journalists in Pune that in a fortnight’s time there would be two “explosions” – one in Delhi and the other in Mumbai.
The second explosion took place on Tuesday, when Pawar stunned his supporters by announcing his decision to step down as president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he had founded on June 10, 1999, after refusing to work under the leadership of the Congress’ Sonia Gandhi. He prefixed the word “Nationalist” before his Congress Party to clearly distinguish it from the party led by Gandhi, a woman of Italian origin. It’s a different matter that he later joined hands with her.
Entire party was taken by surprise
Apart from Supriya, Pawar himself had, last Wednesday, given a hint of his decision to resign while speaking at a meeting of the NCP’s youth wing. At that meeting he had stated that young activists should be in leadership positions “at all levels”. Nevertheless, the entire party was taken by surprise when he stated that he had resigned as the party president.
Pawar’s decision to step down must be seen in the context of the growing proximity between his nephew Ajit Pawar and the BJP. It may be recalled that in 2019 Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP and Ajit Pawar had, in an early morning secret operation, formed a short-lived government. Fadnavis later disclosed that the coalition government was formed with the full blessing of Sharad Pawar. The NCP leader did not deny this sensational claim; he only berated the ebullient BJP leader for letting out the truth.
Ajit Pawar faces ED's heat
Ajit Pawar is once again very restive for two reasons. The Enforcement Directorate had recently submitted a charge sheet in the Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank scam, in which it had earlier attached the properties of a sugar mill linked to Ajit Pawar and his wife Sunetra. That investigation is not yet over. Ajit Pawar’s name has not been mentioned in the charge sheet. But the ED has the option of adding it at a later stage. Thus it is in his own interest to cosy up to the BJP all over again. The other reason is that he is unwilling to wait until the next election to fulfil his ambition of becoming chief minister.
BJP's 'Plan B'
It is learnt that the BJP has a ‘Plan B’ if the Supreme Court verdict in the Shiv Sena MLAs’ disqualification case goes against Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. If that happens, the BJP would like to replace Shinde with Ajit Pawar, who claims the support of 40 MLAs. Shinde has already expressed his unhappiness over this proposed move. He spoke with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the latter’s visit to Mumbai last week.
This way the BJP could weaken the NCP substantially. It has already delivered a body blow to the Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray, by weaning away Shinde and his supporters.
It is trying to repeat the same experiment with regard to the NCP. The BJP’s calculation is that if both the Shiv Sena and the NCP are politically emaciated then it will have a free run in Maharashtra in the 2024 elections to the assembly and Lok Sabha. It remains to be seen if this Machiavellian strategy will work.
