Sharad Pawar's real masterstroke

In this article, the writer talks about how the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar fought the BJP's election strategy in Maharashtra and skillfully ensured to end the saffron party's game plan in the state. He also writes how the NCP adopted two-pronged strategy to expel Ajit Pawar from his post but at the same time did not disown him completely.

New Delhi: Ever since Ajit Pawar took oath, the NCP adopted two-pronged strategy. Sharad Pawar made it very clear that he does not support Ajit's moves and also announced that he will be expelled from his post. But though they distanced themselves from Ajit's act, NCP and Sharad Pawar did not disown him completely. They kept open the channels of communications with Ajit. In fact, most senior leaders like Jayant Patil, Chhagan Bhujbal etc went openly and held at least six meetings with Ajit in the last two days. In fact, on Monday, Chhagan Bhujbal and others had a closed-door talk of about four hours with Ajit Dada. Apart from this Supriya Sule and other Pawar family members also kept on making emotional appeals to Ajit through social media.

So even in the face of Ajit's most drastic step, Sharad Pawar did not allow any hatred towards him. In fact, the hoardings which had come up in Baramati to support Sharad Pawar were immediately asked to be removed.

This helped Pawar on two fronts. Pawar knows that within the NCP there are lot of MLAs, leaders or activists who like Ajit. Had the party decided to demonize Ajit, it would have alienated his supporters within the party. Sharad Pawar avoided this very skillfully. Secondly, Sharad Pawar has also ensured that if Ajit Pawar wishes to come back there is always comeback passage open for him.

And all said and done, though Sharad Pawar is not showing on the face, it was an emotional issue for him as well. Ajit has always been like a son to him. Pawar knows Ajit's strengths and weaknesses. And on number of occasions he had made it clear that Ajit will lead the party in Maharashtra and Supriya, his daughter will stay in Delhi. Supriya is not a chief minister material and is better suited for Delhi politics, which Pawar knows fully. So Ajit's crossing over to the BJP with which Pawar is fighting a battle of his life for past one year was doubtlessly a big jolt. But still, Sharad Pawar ensured as they say "snake gets killed but at the same time stick also does not get broken.”

Pawar's Command over the party

Sharad Pawar is now 79. His party had got wiped out in the Lok Sabha elections. And many observers had written him off. He bounced back in the assembly elections with NCP getting 54 seats. In the elections, he also ensured that many of the leaders who had crossed over to BJP from NCP get defeated. And today, he showed that he has complete command over the party. Excepting Anna Bansod from Pune, not a single MLA in NCP did go with Ajit. Some of the MLAs who were on the fence, were also either persuaded, cajoled or secretly threatened in various ways.

Sharad Pawar is known for his tremendous memory. He knows not just MLAs but most of his grass-root activists by their names. He knows their family and marital ties, and also ins and outs about their cooperative institutes or also about their private affairs. Pawar has helped most of them build their institutions ( like sugar factories etc). Because of this Pawar commands both respects as well as fear even if he is not in power today.

Pawar knows himself whom to tap to talk to the concerned MLA on the fence. And Pawar's strength has come in handy to avert any rebellion in the party.

In the BJP camp

Till yesterday, BJP leaders were celebrating victory even before actually attaining it. They were almost certain that Ajit Pawar must have great sway over his party and at least 25 MLAs will break away along with him. When that did not seem to be happening they started banking on the technical things like Ajit Pawar being an erstwhile leader of NCP legislative party he is solely entitled to issue whip. In the meanwhile, NCP sacked Ajit from the post and elected a new leader in the form of Jayant Patil and informed accordingly to the Assembly Secretariat. But the BJP was not willing to listen to anything.
In the night between Friday and Saturday when the president's rule was revoked, not many BJP leaders were knowing about it. Even most of the ex-ministers and MPs were taken aback when they saw Devendra taking oath on Saturday. So clearly it was a secretive operation planned and executed at the highest level of Modi and Shah.

How far Devendra Fadnavis had any say in the whole episode is anybody's guess at the moment. Left on his own, it can safely be said that Devendra would not have gone along with this plan. Because he and his colleagues have on record said number of times that Ajit is a most corrupt person and his place is in jail. There is one clip going on where Devendra is seen saying that he will never (never and never) go with the NCP. He will remain out of power but will not have to tie up with NCP he had said in the campaign.

The BJP leaders presumed that Ajit would bring along lot many people. But perhaps what they did not anticipate was Sharad Pawar's complete command as also his swift counter-attacking ability. Were the top leadership misled by somebody or were they themselves unduly overconfident and did the miscalculation? It is very difficult to tell.

But it has doubtlessly put the party on the backfoot. This was a misadventure, which could have been easily avoided. Ultimately, the ensuing government may prove inefficient or it may provide the BJP hundreds of reasons to criticize it. But this will not help wipe out from the memory of the people that the BJP can go to any extent to attain power.

The whole picture changed today after the Supreme Court judgement. The BJP was expecting that the vote of confidence will be done by the secret ballot and the Speaker of their choice would preside over the assembly so as to facilitate tilt the balance in their favour. But once it became clear that on both these counts the Court has given a big slap to them the BJP decided to give it up.

On Monday, the Congress, NCP and the Sena organised in a city hotel a big show of strength where they claimed that 162 MLAs were present. Though the BJP social media brigade and the TV spokespersons tried to pooh-pooh it as a child's play, the leaders realised that it is going to be very difficult to engineer any more rebellion, which they were planning.

From then on the picture changed. But still, they were banking on the Supreme Court, which has deferred a decision by one day. Ultimately even there they could score a point and BJP decided to give up.

Ajit's resignation

In the morning there was speculation that Ajit will resign since he has realised he can not get enough numbers with him. In fact, he fell flat on his face in this respect.

Ajit had joined hands with the BJP hurriedly for the main reason that he was fearing that he may be sent to jail in the ED case. He was just not prepared for that. The BJP on its part wanted to retain one of the most prosperous states in the country at any cost. And perhaps Amit Shah had certain scores to settle with Pawar.

Once it became clear that situation is not favouring them, somebody had to become a scapegoat. And it could have been none other than Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis. It was decided to project that Ajit bowed out because of the lot of pressure from the family and BJP had to backtrack because of this. It is another matter that even the hardcore BJP sympathiser will not easily buy this argument.

So Ajit resigned. Now he will keep low for some time. But later on, after say one year, it would not be surprising if again he becomes active in garnering support and form a government with Devendra.

It is very interesting to note here that once it became clear that he has resigned, all the MLAs, leaders and party activist started giving bytes to the television channels that Ajit Dada is still their leader and he should come back. He may not get some posts in the party for some time. But let us see...