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POLITICS
The wheel turns full circle for Pawar
JM
 Sharad Pawar
split the Congress party to strike out on his own. Now, he has fallen victim to the same practice.
A Dancewithshadows.com perspective.
Mumbai is flooded, and it’s raining bad luck for Sharad Pawar. The former Maratha strongman is a mellowed man today, despite the high stature he commands in the Union ministry as agriculture minister. In a way, the wheel has come full circle for
Pawar.
Sharad Pawar was part of the Union cabinet of PV Narasimha Rao as Defence minister. He left the party in a huff in 1999. Being one of the senior most Congress leaders in the Rao cabinet, Pawar fondly dreamed of the top slot at India's grand old party once it fell vacant. Rightly so, for the man had started his successful legislative career as long back as 1967. The other aspirant for the same seat was Arjun Singh, currently Union minister for education. While Arjun Singh finally came to terms with his past, Pawar decided to strike
out on his own. Brave move no doubt, but did it pay off?
It was the Congress consensus on selecting Sonia Gandhi for the top job that miffed Pawar. Pawar had been waiting
in the wings for long enough and decided that enough is enough. He made a hue and cry and left the party, saying no foreigner should be allowed to take the reins of the party or the country. To make matters worse, the Congress Working Committee expelled him along with associates like PA Sangma on May 20, 1999. Most of the party men stayed behind in the warm comfort of tricolor khadi. On May 27, 1999, he founded the Nationalist Congress Party along with Sangma and Tariq Anwar. Pawar managed some followers, but with the birth of NCP, Pawar lost his national stature. The NCP never made it big enough to stake claim to state power alone and had to stick
with the Congress in Maharashtra, a rather humiliating decision for him.
As leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha after the 1998 general elections, Pawar still held his head high. His voice was heard. There was still a good chance that he would make it to the PMO one day.
Chhagan Bhujbal was a prize catch. The wily and sharp-tongued leader had left the Shiv Sena when the saffron tigers were in the opposition in the state assembly. He moved to the Congress, perhaps hoping for a victory, but found himself in the opposition benches after the elections. Later, taking another switch, he moved to NCP, finding an eager host in Sharad Pawar.
Sonia's entry into Lok Sabha eclipsed Pawar's career. Congressmen found another magnet to cling to, and Pawar's influence started to wane. The NCP, despite its "nationalist" name was getting confined to the pockets commanded by Pawar and Sangma.
The rumbles started as as early as 2003, when the Telgi stamp scam opened a can of worms and Pawar's trusted lieutenant Bhujbal, then deputy chief minister in the Maharashtra cabinet came under a cloud. Bhujbal became too a hot a potato for Pawar to handle, and he was shown the door. Pawar retained the image of a leader who has punished his erring junior, but the damage was done.
After this, Bhujbal received little support from NCP in his battle against his detractors. Pawar
did not stand by Bhujbal, and he felt sidelined. In a recent interview to a Marathi daily, Bhujbal confessed that he had made two major mistakes in his career. One can safely assume that these were 1) leaving the Sena for Congress - Sena won and Congress lost and 2) leaving the Congress for NCP - Bhujbal could never strike out on his own so long as he was under Pawar's tutelage.
The 2004 General Elections triggered the fault lines in NCP. Sharad Pawar went through the agony of deciding whom to ally with for the polls, since there was little chance of winning it solo. The Congress was, by all accounts, seen as a losing party, while all was shining for the NDA. Initially, Pawar was quoted as saying that he is open to an alliance with any party including the BJP, but later he gravitated to the Sonia side. While Saffron Sangh unleashed an ant-foreigner blitzkrieg against Sonia, Pawar stood by her, retracting the steps he took in 1999. Pawar supported Sonia's right to prime ministership if Congress
party won the elections -- Yet another brave, idealistic move, but a politically misguided one.
In sticking to Sonia, Pawar could not take the entire party with him, and several revolted. The day he announced his pro-Sonia leanings, Sangma, his associate since the 1999 exit from Congress blew a fuse. No way the party can go with Sonia, he said. The differences were too sharp to settle and Sangma split the party, claiming to be the true NCP. He subsequently staked claim for the party's electoral symbol too, but this was turned down by the Election Commission. Pawar retained the symbol, but he had lost a lot.
All through the 2004 election campaign, Pawar hoped to stage a good show at least in Maharashtra and take a decent NCP battalion to the Lok Sabha. Once the results started pouring in, his face fell. In all, NCP sent just 6 members to the Lok Sabha. Pawar's dream to be a king-maker at the Centre had gone bust. NCP was reduced to small party.
For a party with such small numbers, it was to his credit that he got to command the Union agriculture ministry. Pawar has always been known to be close to the sugarcane farmers in the state and this was his chance to do some good work for them, one of the first demands he raised was a financial package for the cane growers in the state. It seemed that finally, all was well.
But bad luck failed to leave Sharad Pawar. Hardly a couple of months into the Union Cabinet, Pawar is facing revolt in the state unit. Bhujbal had decided that enough was enough. Sitting out in NCP wilderness with no one to support his career was becoming a little too much. The banner of revolt has started fluttering again. And there seems to be more disgruntled NCP elements ready to leave. The phone rings at Krishi Bhavan. There is a call from home.
BY JM
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