Maharashtra: With BJP on the Prowl, Ajit Pawar’s Challenge Deepens Crisis in NCP

The politics of Maharashtra has taken a curious turn with Ajit Pawar, stung by the promotion of Supriya Sule in the NCP, virtually throwing down the gauntlet to Sharad Pawar.

63-year-old Ajit’s statement that he be relieved of the post of the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly and given a role in the organisation, is seen as a challenge to the Maratha strongman at a time when the BJP is on the prowl.

Ajit’s googly is aimed at telling his uncle that given an opportunity, he could perform miracles in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly polls in the state.

The implied message is that Supriya who has been made working president of the NCP and also in charge of Maharashtra cannot match him even with a bargepole. The 55-year-old daughter of Sharad Pawar has generally remained away from the rough and tumble of state politics where Ajit is known as “Dada” with awe and respect, unmindful of the controversies including the financial scandals that surround him.

A Restless Ajit Worries the NCP

The daring by the Maharashtra leader of the Opposition shows that the crisis in Pawar’s party is far from over and the next few months would be crucial on how things play out. Right now, the state NCP chief is Jayant Patil, who is not on the best of terms with Ajit. Chagan Bhujbal, the party’s OBC face, has also pitched for the post, apparently at the prodding of the NCP leadership.

Ajit has become restless and it is a cause of worry for the party. The internal ongoings in the NCP have a bearing on the politics of Maharashtra which is going through a flux. He has been the right-hand man of Sharad in state politics and the nephew is telling his uncle that doing politics without him won't be easy. Ajit's latest statement shows that he would not take things lying down.

Political observers believe that a tussle is on in Maharashtra between Sharad Pawar, who has been the principal architect of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah who has vowed to make BJP the dominant force in the state. After splitting the Shiv Sena, BJP’s target is the NCP.

Everything is fair in love and politics. Ajit could be playing the game to extract the maximum price from the BJP. His hobnobbing with the BJP is known for long as he had been the Deputy CM in the short-lived Devendra Fadnavis government formed soon after the assembly polls in 2019 which had raised many an eyebrow.

Ajit's Ambitions

If Ajit switches sides, it could be a jackpot for the BJP given his influence in sugar-rich Western Maharashtra from which the NCP derives its power. The BJP might have leapfrogged from number four to the number one spot in Maharashtra with the emergence of Narendra Modi at the national level in May 2014, but it does not have a prominent Maratha face. The incumbent CM Eknath Shinde is also Maratha.

After remaining the Deputy CM for a long time, Ajit’s problem is the slip between the cup and lip when it comes to CM post. At times, half in jest and half seriously, he has sought to blame his uncle for that. In 2004, though the NCP got more seats than Congress, Sharad Pawar opted for the Deputy CM post for his party so that he could continue to have a grip over the government.

With Sharad Pawar now 82 years old, there are hardly any state-level leaders in the NCP barring Ajit, state NCP chief Jayant Patil, who does not have a good rapport with Ajit, and former Deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal. R R Patil who was the Deputy CM some 15 years back was a promising leader but he died long back.

Ajit knows that at just 38, Sharad Pawar had earned the distinction of becoming the youngest CM of Maharashtra when in 1978 he toppled the Vasantdada Patil government – formed after two splinter groups of Congress had joined hands. He might be feeling that if Eknath Shinde can become the CM, why not him?

The 'Maratha Machiavelli'

The script has a sub-script. Ajit’s hobnobbing with the BJP has also alerted Shinde, who had only recently caused a flutter in the state with a full-page advertisement projecting a survey that claimed that he was more popular as CM than Fadnavis as Deputy CM. It was like the tail wagging the dog. Talk in political circles is that there is growing unease between Shinde and Fadnavis though they might be saying that they are like “Fevicol ka jod”.

Ajit’s talk of the failure of the NCP to become a force to reckon with in Maharashtra like Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in Bengal or Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh or Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP is a veiled attack on the leadership of senior Pawar. The NCP always projects itself as being a ‘small party led by a big leader’. Ajit is obliquely wondering what the “big leader’ has achieved in the last 25 years for the party on his home turf.

The politics of the premier state itself has been undergoing an uneasy transition since the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government a year back following the split within the then CM Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena. Much water has gone through Krishna-Godavari since then but things have not stabilised.

A political commentator put it aptly: "If the 18th-century statesman of the Maratha Empire, Nana Phadnavis, was called the ‘Maratha Machiavelli’ by European visitors to the Peshwa court, that moniker today would undoubtedly belong to Sharad Pawar."

Now that ‘Machiavelli’ has confronted a problem on the home front and that too of his own making, how he will resolve the issue will bring back peace and normalcy in his party? Those who like to call themselves the ‘Chanakya’ of the ruling party at the Centre are unrelenting in their game. The threat is real. Time is of the essence.

(Sunil Gatade is a former Associate Editor of the Press Trust of India. This is an opinion article and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)