The Pawar war suits BJP but has it bitten off more than can be chewed?

Ajit Pawar battles his uncle, Sharad Pawar, to reach the magic number of 36 to duck the anti-defection law. (File images)

If we thought that the Sharad Pawar versus Ajit Pawar battle was a staged drama, Wednesday’s proceedings in the two separate meetings held in Mumbai brings down the curtains on that grapevine.

Clearly, battle lines have not only been drawn, they have hardened, between the uncle and the nephew. And the outcome: An altered, uncertain political landscape in Maharashtra.

Faultlines In A Family Rift

For, this is not just a simple split in a political party; it looks increasingly like a bitter division of a Maratha extended family that will percolate down to the social annals of the state. If the BJP thought it would watch the drama merrily from a distance as it fuels fire, it might just be proven wrong. This battle would have its echo played far and wide and for a long time.

Much to the chagrin of NCP’s common workers, the nephew and his team of stalwarts like Chhagan Bhujbal went all guns blazing against Sharad Pawar, even as they described him as their “Vitthal” – the venerable avatar of Vishnu that Maharashtra so deeply reveres, divulging party and family secrets one after the other; seeking to know how joining hands with the BJP for power to serve people was a crime when they could join hands with the Shiv Sena; and in the process drawing many parallels with some of Pawar Senior’s own past political machinations.

Ajit Pawar, himself 63 years old, went on to ask of his uncle: “You are 83, are you ever going to stop?” That, suggesting that it’s time for his “old” uncle to retire, sit at home and be merely a “Margdarshak”. For that, Ajit drew a parallel with Murli Manohar Joshi and LK Advani, two of BJP’s patriarchs who were force-retired because of their advanced age.

Emotional at times, and an expression of his pent-up anger with what his colleagues called his persistent humiliation by the uncle, Ajit Pawar’s speech however indicated how he had been a willing candidate for long to embrace the Narendra Modi-led BJP – ideology be damned.

Pawar Senior did not respond to personal tirades – that was left to his daughter and MP Supriya Sule and other close confidantes to do, but he did provide a point-by-point rebuttal, clarifying in no uncertain terms that he would go all out to rebuild his party, with whatever it takes.

Between this open house, played live on most channels, the question of arithmetic and legal tangles remains hanging and is set to drag this battle the way the Shiv Sena’s did for months.

Ajit’s Powerplay, BJP’s Game

Meanwhile, through the day, it became clear that Ajit Pawar had petitioned the Chief Election Commissioner even before taking oath of the office staking claim to the NCP. That he was now a new national president of the party, anointed by a majority of the elected legislators, in a redux of Eknath Shinde’s tactics, with tacit backing from BJP’s backroom managers.

Ajit’s move was not merely to join hands with the BJP, but to throw Sharad Pawar into political oblivion, an audacious plan indeed, especially since the nephew has seen his uncle from close quarters. To that extent, BJP high command’s plan to ruthlessly split the NCP and corner Sharad Pawar in the run up to 2024 has fructified.

Would it yield political dividends? Time will tell.

“We will go to a people and resurrect ourselves,” Pawar Sr. told the gathering, in a speech devoid of any emotional undertones unlike his nephew’s and measured in words as he always is.

The two sides, with their show of strength Wednesday, know exactly where they stand in terms of numbers – with Ajit clearly commanding a majority of MLAs. Whether he has the magic number of 36 of the 53 NCP MLAs to duck the anti-defection law isn’t clear yet. But Sharad Pawar will neither be sitting idle, nor bring his family emotions into this tug of war – this being his last hurrah in the crowded and competitive electoral politics.

Ambitions, Uncertainties, Possibilities

If wresting NCP from Sharad Pawar is his immediate aim, Ajit Pawar made no secret of his ambition to become the chief minister. He told his supporters that his party would contest 90 assembly seats in tow with the Eknath Shinde faction and BJP in the 288-member assembly.

This would worry both the Shinde faction and BJP, particularly the former, with its weak mass base. Because if Ajit’s NCP claims 90 seats, what’s left for the Shinde Sena and BJP is less than 200 seats to contest between them. How many of the 48 Lok Sabha seats would Ajit lay claim to, isn’t clear though.

The BJP must surely wonder if Ajit Pawar’s entry would add to its headache or earn dividends, since this is the first time it has acquired two breakaway groups of different political hues as allies, each with a past baggage and gigantic ambitions. But that’s a different story.

Immediately, there seems to be growing unrest in the Eknath Shinde camp, with the induction of nine NCP ministers. Reports that two of his MLAs, waiting for ministerial berths, came to blows suggest things could get awry. That unease itself is pregnant with uncertainties and umpteen new possibilities. Two stakeholders – Congress and Uddhav’s Shiv Sena – are holding their cards to the chest. So, we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

Meanwhile, BJP’s rank and file is as dazed and perplexed with this open game of thrones as the common man of the state – all this, of the party’s own making. It’s a whodunnit moment in Maharashtra politics, with more questions than easy or straight answers.

Jaideep Hardikar is a Nagpur-based journalist, a core team member of the People's Archive of Rural India, and the author of "Ramrao - The story of India's farm crisis". Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.