Er. P.L Khushu
Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar breaks under its own weight. The root cause is family fanning and family feud over political power. Recently he preferred his daughter to be the president of NCP ignoring the vast and matured cadre leaders of his political party, including his nephew Ajit Pawar and aclife long companion Praful Patel. Sharad Pawar, while reorganizing his political party NCP, named his daughter as its new President, ignoring the other leaders, who have equally been his trusted lieutenants. Primarily it has created ripples in his party which probably he has taken as his personal empire. It has strongly been contested by his nephew Ajit Pawar, his trusted lieutenants like Praful Patel, member parliament and other similar leaders of his party. Ajit Pawar’s decision to part ways with his political mentor and Uncle Sharad Pawar and joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena, along with a majority of legislative members of NCP, has left Sharad Pawar and other members of MVA governments guessing and crest fallen. It is a big jolt in the political scenario of Maharashtra after the breakup of Shiva Sena in to two, which led to the fall of the government of Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government. Ajit Pawar joining the Maharashtra government as deputy chief minister for the fourth time has surprised many. This is the retaliatory outcome of the hasty decision of Sharad Pawar, to ignore the classic lieutenants of his, since the birth of NCP, after his breaking way from congress, which was a historic decision on his part at that point of time. By doing so, Ajit Pawar has agreed to play third fiddle, after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. No one joins politics to play a tertiary role after having been deputy chief minister three times. Even more surprising was the list of other Nationalist Congress Party leaders with him Chhagan Bhujbal, Sunil Tatkare, Dilip Walse Patil and Praful Patel, all of who were deemed close associates of Sharad Pawar. Sharad Pawar who is born on 12 December 1940, being aged of more than 80 years of age, is an Indian politician who is thought to be held in high esteem in the political gamut of India. He has probably belittled his political stature by naming his daughter as the president of newly constituted NCP, ignoring others over her, to make it sure that NCP remains the political bastion of his family only. While doing so he has willfully ignored his nephew too, who smelled a rat in this regard since long.
What had been in the offing for a while has finally become reality. NCP leader Ajit Pawar, who was the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly until July 1, crossed over to join the Maharashtra government on July 2 as Deputy Chief Minister, along with eight other members of his party, who also became Ministers. Ajit Pawar had finally arrived at the BJP camp, which he had been trying to do since 2019. On July 2, Ajit Pawar met party MLAs and submitted a letter of support to the Eknath Shinde-led government to Governor Ramesh Bais. His faction claims to have the support of 42 of 53 of the party’s MLAs. 2nd July was also the first anniversary of the Shinde government, which came into existence after Shinde broke ranks from the Shiv Sena, rebelling against his leader Uddhav Thackeray. Thus, a year after, the BJP succeeded in breaking the NCP, another strong pillar of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). On his decision to join the government, Ajit Pawar said: “India is progressing under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That’s why, though there are some differences with the BJP, the NCP has decided to join hands with government for the progress of Maharashtra.”
Looking to the long political journey of Sharad Pawar and being almost super aged now, he should have left the issue of the selection of the new successor to him as the president of NCP, to the new generation of his real and dedicated political followers, rather than to make it a family legacy as also a private firm of his family. This act of his has exposed his ulterior political motives, to hanker after political power by hook or crook. By all standards of the qualities of a true statesman politician, he should have now called it a day in his political life, when he has suffered from a bad ailment which has left him damaged in his posture and is hardly able to speak in public with ease. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for four terms and has also served in the Union Council of Ministers as the Minister of Defense in the Cabinet of P.V Narsimha Rao and Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet of Manmohan Singh. He is the first and current president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he founded in 1999, after separating from the Indian National Congress. He leads the NCP delegation in the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Indian parliament. He is the chairperson of Maha Vikas Aghadi, a regional Maharashtra-based political alliance. Pawar comes from Baramati of Maharashtra. He is the patriarch of the influential political family, the Pawar Family and a prominent face in Maharashtra politics. Other politicians from the family include his daughter Supriya Sule, Ajit Pawar his nephew, Rohit Rajendra Pawar a nephew’s son and other members of his extended family. Outside of politics, Pawar has served as the Chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI from 2005 to 2008 and as the president of the International Cricket Council from 2010 to 2012. He was the president of the Mumbai Cricket Association from October 2013 to January 2017. In 2017, the Indian government conferred upon him Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honor of India. Should he still fish in the troubled waters of the present time politics? Probably not. He has been left high and dry in NCP with a small section of his MLA’s and supporters, when he is trying to prove himself the original king of NCP, which is myth for him. He has lost the battle this time. He has been exposed by his nephew, Ajit Pawar, when he has been hobnobbing with BJP several times for power in the past, which could hardly be contested by him with ease. While being the architect of the creation of Maha Vikas Aghadi, a regional Maharashtra-based political alliance, he compromised his political position to a lowest level of joining hands with congress which he left long time ago. Similarly, he made himself sub servant to the Chief Minister ship of Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government. It shows his brazen compromise with the Shiv Sena of which he was a strong enemy in Maharashtra. This si the fate of our opposition leaders of repute and fame, like Sharad Pawar, who want to remove Modi somehow and come back to power again.
What is Ajit Pawar’s game? What is the BJP planning? Where does Ajit Pawar’s entry leave the Shiv Sena MLAs who broke off with the parent organization along with Eknath Shinde? Just a a few days ago, Modi told Bharatiya Janata Party workers that the Nationalist Congress Party was a corruption-ridden party. There are allegations of scams of nearly Rs 70,000 crore against NCP. Within days of this speech, NCP leaders joined the Maharashtra government led by Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis. Most agree that it is the fear of central agencies probing scams involving NCP leaders that forced these politicians to jump ship. Be it so as is generally made known, will such events carry through the policies of the present NDA government under the leadership of Modi at the centre to show the door to the corrupt politicians, or will it eclipse the honest image of the NDA government to a large extent, in the coming general elections of 2024. It is a million dollar question. Will these politicians who have defected from NCP and taken big ministerial births in Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, be able to cope up with the administrative style of working of Modi, which is free of all corrupt practices so far. How long will they be able to sustain themselves in such circumstances? Let the country wait and watch.
This situation has created fusion and effusion in the political combinations and circles of not Maharashtra only, but across the political make-ups or making ups of the whole country. The worst victim is the recent unceremonious gathering of some politicians at Patna, looking for resurgence, with the adverse leadership of congress party through Rahul Gandhi , who is playing in the lap of Kharge, the present congress President, a political leader who may not be able to contribute much, because of his advanced age. Probably Rahul Gandhi’s projected imminent presence in all such political weddings of diverse intensions and equations by the congress party has spoiled the broth and the spice of it. No opposition political party across the country is solemnly ready to have him as a tall leader representing the major opposition party the congress, which has a bigger national base, but with diminished leadership. A bigger damage is in the offing for this purposeless conclave, who met at Patna, planning to dethrone BJP in the 2024 national elections, with non-objective manifesto and superficial subjective political aims. One political party is opposed to the other, is a regular order of this so called excursion conclave, presuming to heat up their anger against Modi and BJP with shallow and hollow maneuvering of their political aims and desires.
Unfortunate for this country, such situations are the causes for the viral of cancer in our political freedom. Political parties linked to deep family tags have deprived the people of this nation from their inherent rights of freedom of expression and freedom to live with dignity. The fault lies with the people who are lured by such political parties and thus change the entire definition of democracy to the autocracy, of these political parties to rule as political monarchs over the people as their subjects of slavery. It is not the tale of one political family only in this country. This country is full of such family linked political parties spread across the country, which are innumerable and spread from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
In fact, a proverbial axiom fits in here, which says, “out of the frying pan into the fire”. Ever since this nation got freedom from the British, we the Indians landed in the laps of these families linked political parties. This specter started from Delhi in 1947 itself, when Sardar Patel was bypassed and Nehru was opted for governing India. Nehru dynasty got linked to the present Gandhi dynasty through Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Nehru, when the Gandhi dynasty has ruled this nation for almost more than 50 years. Political hierarchy of governing power, trickled from Nehru to Indira Gandhi, then to Rajiv Gandhi and through Rajiv Gandhi to his wife Sonia Gandhi, when Sonia Gandhi ruled this country through Proxy for about 10 years by installing stooge Prime Minister like Manmohan Singh, to head the congress government. What happened during such a rule of the family linked congress parry is an open chapter. Same is true about most of the states of India, right from Jammu and Kashmir to deep south. Abdullah’s ruled Jammu and Kashmir for decades followed by Mufti’s, when such dynasty rules in Kashmir resulted in deep anger of sorts in the youth of Jammu and Kashmir leading to their taking to guns. Bihar is another example where the political ruler ship of the state, is mostly managed by one family only, since last more than 20 years. Tamil Nadu is another glaring example in such a scenario. In fact in the southern part of India except Kerala and now Karnataka, it is the dynasty based political parties which mostly change the hands for the governance of these states. UP can be quoted as another example of past in this regard, when only one political party ruled the state, for about two decades, which has now been dethroned. How can it be stopped is the paradox?. However, it has to be stopped at some stage. The answer has to come from the voters of this country.
(This author is a chartered consultant civil engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his mother land – Jammu & Kashmir).