Power play, Pawar-style

If there is one word to describe the pre-electoral scene in Maharashtra, it is “confusing”. Never before have there been five big parties in the fray, each snapping at the heels of the other. Old alliances have collapsed, long-standing friendships have been broken and new relationships have been minted. The strangest of people are talking, while those who were bitterly estranged till the other day are showing new warmth towards each other.

And the leaders — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has the heaviest champion of them all, Narendra Modi except that he is not a local politician and will not become the chief minister. The Congress can boast of Prithviraj Chavan while the Shiv Sena is lead by Uddhav Thackeray. On his own, Raj Thackeray punches above his party’s weight, which is in danger of slipping into the also ran category unless he posts good results. But there is little question who stands the tallest among all the politicians in the state — Sharad Pawar, the veteran warhorse of many a combat.

Where he stands politically is quite another matter. On the face of it, this is an absurd question — we all know that till the other day Mr Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was ruling the state along with the Congress and that the two have been partners for nearly 15 years. In fact, he is one of the last of a generation of Congressmen who can trace his political lineage to the 1970s and who knows not just the state’s but also national politics like the back of his hand. But, after parting ways with the Congress within hours of the BJP-Sena split, this question assumes tremendous importance.

No sooner than the NCP had cut ties with the Congress, Mr Chavan had said that Mr Pawar had worked out a deal with Mr Modi to support the BJP in case it fell short of a full majority in the Assembly elections. Speculation on the same lines was rife even during the Lok Sabha elections campaign, but that situation never came to pass because the BJP won a majority on its own. This time round, polls show the BJP getting as low as 105 or as high as 154 seats, which implies it could need a partner to reach the figure of 144. It could always swallow its distaste for the Shiv Sena and come together again, but in case that doesn’t work out,
Mr Pawar may step forward. In return, he will get a ministry or two in Delhi. So goes the analysis, though Mr Pawar claims that will never happen and he would rather sit in the Opposition.

At the same time, the buzz in political circles also is that the NCP could come together with the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) for a triangular alliance and stake a claim. Though the Senas are not particularly fond of Mr Pawar, power may provide the right glue to this strange ménage a trois. During a TV interview recently, his close aide Praful Patel refused to comment, one way or the other on this possibility.

Mr Pawar is always known to keep all options open. It is not a feature unique to him of course, but he has made it an art form. The party’s spokespersons claim that he will remain with secular forces, but at the same time, rumours are rife that he has secretly met and come to agreement with Mr Modi that he will be willing and available. If these rumours are baseless, he and his spokespersons should have no qualms about stating loudly and clearly that they will never have any truck with the BJP (or the Sena). That has not been forthcoming.

Mr Pawar’s past provides a clue to his flexibility. In 1978, while a member of Vasantdada Patil’s Cabinet in Maharashtra, a young Mr Pawar simply walked out and gathered around him not just Congressmen but also Janata Party MLAs and formed a government. It was a shock to Mr Patil, who had thought of him as a protégé. Since then, Mr Pawar has been against the Congress, with the Congress, criticised Sonia Gandhi for being a foreigner, tied up with her and at all times, kept close links with everyone from the Akali Dal to the Samajwadi Party to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). His ambition is to be the Prime Minister and be the first Maratha to rule from Delhi. But every time he has tried a leadership role in the capital, whether for the PMship or the Congress president’s post, he has failed. That dream is fading, but he wants to remain a player and keep himself in the game.

Those who know him praise his administrative skill and his political astuteness, but an odour of corruption and compromise have always wafted around him. He knows each and every district and taluka in his state, is comfortable with party workers and also with industrialists and intellectuals and remains personally secular and liberal. But no one knows where he stands — one day he will praise Mr Modi, the other day attack him bitterly. Mr Modi has now done the unprecedented — he held a rally in Mr Pawar’s own bastion of Baramati, where no Opposition politician has campaigned for 35 years.

Is this just a sham and are they working on a script? Will the BJP take Mr Pawar’s help knowing his reputation? Is Mr Pawar planning something else altogether? Most crucially, will the results surprise everyone, throwing all pre-election calculations out of the window, like it happened in May 2014? We will know soon enough. But one thing is certain — those who say that the soon-to-be-75 Sharad Pawar is fighting his last great battle don’t know the man. He is resilient and unstoppable — his last hurrah is still some time away.