Sunil Gatade | New ‘Operation Tutari’ On Cards In Maha To Keep Pawar In Check?

After cutting Uddhav Thackeray and his Shiv Sena (UBT) to size, the BJP will be turning its attention to Sharad Pawar by seeking to break his parliamentary party to swell the NDA’s numbers.

It’s not that the BJP has been benevolent towards the Maratha strongman of yesteryears. Some four years ago, it engineered a split in his Nationalist Congress Party by weaning away his ambitious nephew, the late Ajit Pawar, to its side.

Now, the straws in the wind suggest that the BJP, which is behaving crazily like a hungry tiger, is unlikely to stop at just “devouring” the Shiv Sena (UBT) but would take the operation to its logical conclusion. So, the next target is obviously Sharad Pawar’s NCP, already a dilapidated house.

The BJP’s detractors, however, dismiss talk of the BJP being the “tiger”, insisting that the way it is behaving, it could at best be called a “hyena”, or a scavenger.

“Tutari” (trumpet) is the emblem of Mr Pawar’s party after Ajit parted ways and the Election Commission handed him the “clock” symbol, which was with the undivided party since its inception way back in 1999. Sharad Pawar had come out of the Congress on the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin.

Since Ajit’s parting of ways, Sharad Pawar and his party are on a slide after momentarily making a good splash in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. Besides Supriya Sule, one of the active leaders in the party is Rohit Pawar, grandnephew of the veteran, who is young and ambitious. Jayant Patil, who is the stalwart among the local leaders, is keeping a low profile amid suggestions from the BJP that he would be most welcome.

There are challenges galore for the octogenarian Mr Pawar. He is neither in the pink of health politically nor physically since the defeat of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in the Assembly polls in Maharashtra 18 months ago.

Since then, it has been a riches-to-rags story for the MVA, which was seen as a novel experiment in Indian politics with arch-rivals Shiv Sena and the Congress sharing power in the premier state. The not-so-spectacular performance of the MVA in the civic polls further devalued the Opposition.

Mr Pawar has been the architect of the MVA, which comprises the Congress, Mr Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena. It was formed after the 2019 Assembly polls when Uddhav broke ranks with the BJP and became the chief minister of Maharashtra.

Known for his networking skills, Mr Pawar had always been in touch with a broad spectrum of leaders, including those from the BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah.

Reports had it that Mr Pawar was invited to join the NDA by none other than the Prime Minister more than once, but he had always dodged the issue. Mr Pawar has a long association with industrialist Gautam Adani since his days of taking baby steps in business. Mr Adani is now known to be the closest to the ruling side at the Centre since Mr Modi’s emergence.

The problem for Mr Pawar is that he has failed to produce a second line of leadership in the party, and his reliance on his daughter, Supriya Sule, as the working president of the party has proved to be his undoing.

No doubt Supriya is an articulate member of Parliament but is no mass leader. She has not ground her teeth in the rough and tumble of politics, being the darling daughter of the stalwart The elevation of Supriya was bound to lead to Ajit Pawar parting ways as he was the natural successor.

Ajit’s exit and his subsequent tragic death in a plane crash a few months ago were a double whammy for Mr Pawar. This was especially so as the two had opened unity talks shortly before the end came. These talks are all effectively dead now, as a section of the Ajit group feels that the veteran would all but gobble up their party.

For the BJP, the NCP (SP) parliamentary party is child's play to deal with given the fact that every legislator wants more returns for the buck. And the days of ideology and thought are long over; it has virtually become a game of pelf and power.

Added to this is that the BJP has systematically weaponised the issue of development. Any legislator who wants to make his constituency a hub of development needs to be “positive” towards the powers that be at the Centre. Those who fall in the “Opposition” side are people that need to be ignored and will be ignored, or so goes the unwritten rule.

It’s a moment of reckoning for Mr Pawar, whose pocket enclave of Baramati had earned recognition as the most developed in the state whose leadership decided which way the politics of Maharashtra moved for half a century, even when he was out of power.

The sand is moving from under Mr Pawar’s feet; and more than murmurs are appearing from his loyalists that it may be time to return to the Congress in order to battle communal forces. Mr Pawar and the beleaguered Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal are sailing in the same boat, and must decide, sooner than later, their future course of action.

Mr Pawar is a sick man trying to keep his head above water. He is pragmatic enough to know how to do so. Narendra Modi has suggested more than once that he learned politics by holding Mr Pawar’s hand; a claim the NCP leader always frowned upon. Mr Pawar knows what fate has befallen L.K. Advani, who was once instrumental in Mr Modi’s rise.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi