Maharashtra Politics | Sharad Pawar gets a taste of his own medicine

“If the Shiv Sena and BJP do not make a mess of their governance in three years, I will quit politics," Pawar had then said.

However, before the saffron allies lost power, Pawar split the Congress a second time since 1978 with a lot of sugar barons in tow. Although the NCP lost the subsequent polls in 1999, these sugar barons compelled him into an alliance with the Congress and the two parties ruled Maharashtra for the next 15 years.

Through his 52 years in active politics, Pawar has always pulled the government strings from behind thus managing to keep his flock together whether in government or out of it.

In the past five years the social and political dynamics in Maharashtra have undergone not so subtle shifts. Although his support was on offer to the minority BJP government in October 2014, at a time it was feuding with the Shiv Sena, the BJP has never been interested in doing business with Pawar. Somehow by both supporting and criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pawar kept alive the myth of his connections in high places going and kept his vote-bank interested. However, the gloves really came off on both sides during the recent Lok Sabha polls.

The NCP may have done better in alliance with the Congress in previous elections, but now there are no illusions that the two parties are headed for near decimation at the coming assembly elections.

Pawar has always taken pride in the fact that unlike the Congress he has built a second rank leadership in his party. The NCP men refer to these leaders in a tongue-in-cheek fashion as “sardars" — former ministers or sugar barons who were given charge of party units, committees or districts and allowed to function independently. It is a structure formulated by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray over the decades.

So whenever Pawar needed to break the Shiv Sena all he had to do was poach its leaders and he succeeded in depleting the Shiv Sena of all its supporters from those regions: For example, Chhagan Bhujbal brought Nashik with him to the undivided Congress, Ganesh Naik brought Navi Mumbai to the NCP and Narayan Rane the Konkan region to the Congress after turning down Pawar’s offer to join the NCP.

This is exactly what Pawar is being subjected to today — depletion of entire party units as the second-rung leaders join the BJP or the Shiv Sena essentially to return to power and safeguard their own business interests.

They are deserting Pawar and have lost faith in him for two reasons: First, his health and age despite the fact that he kept up a punishing schedule during the Lok Sabha polls and was the first to hit the campaign trail for the assembly elections soon thereafter. Second, the succession in the NCP can go to only two people — either his nephew Ajit Pawar or his daughter Supriya Sule — and many NCP leaders are unwilling to accept either.

So those who are not making tracks to the Shiv Sena or the BJP are likely to eye the Congress in the future simply because they are on secular seats and cannot afford to flirt with the saffron parties.

So, does all this place the Congress in a stronger position vis-à-vis the NCP? Not really. They are already a much-depleted force to the extent that even the ruling alliance is not interested in engineering defections from the party at this juncture.

Despite the weakening NCP, the Congress needs Sharad Pawar even more today and are likely to toe his line dutifully. However, Pawar too can no longer afford to play games with the Congress. Bitten once, will he be twice shy? Or is this leopard unlikely to change his spots? The coming days will give an answer.

Sujata Anandan is a senior journalist and author. Views are personal.