The importance of being Sharad Pawar

'The Grand, Old Man Who Is Never at Sea' was the cheeky headline in The Indian Express recently when Sharad Pawar (83) dramatically announced his resignation as the NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) chief, only to take it back under pressure. Veteran editor and Rajya Sabha MP Kumar Ketkar, who has known the Maratha leader for ages, chuckles as he recalls what Winston Churchill had said about Russia. “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” Churchill had said. Similarly, Pawar’s unpredictability too often confounds people, as he is known to keep his friends close, his enemies closer and both guessing.

BJP leaders in Maharashtra have tried to dismiss him as an old man past his prime. His nephew Ajit Pawar, who is said to be keen to take over the mantle of leadership from him, has often dropped broad hints that it is time for elders in the party to make way for youngsters. But when he finally did announce his retirement from politics, Opposition leaders, from Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, wanted him to reconsider the decision. NCP workers refused to move from his residence and the party office till he changed his mind, among them known supporters of Ajit Pawar.

He confounded the Opposition when he praised beleaguered industrialist Gautam Adani and declared that the Adani Group was being targeted. He also added that a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) would not be able to do much to investigate allegations against the group. Days later, a grateful Gautam Adani landed at Pawar’s residence for a two-hour-long meeting and set the cat among the pigeons. What might they have discussed?

Just when the BJP leaders began to grin at the Opposition’s discomfiture, Pawar declared that the Opposition leaders were united and that there was an anti-BJP wave in the country. But before political observers could absorb the significance of the statement, he effusively praised Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

Never, ever, take him for granted is the message he sends out to keep friends and foes on their toes. A 63 years long political career, 56 of them spent in electoral politics, during which he was not only chief minister of Maharashtra four times but also India’s defence minister and agriculture minister— many politicians might have been tempted to hang up their boots. But not Sharad Govindrao Pawar, who knows that he is still in with a chance to fulfil his lifelong ambition of becoming the prime minister.

Observers and critics scoff at such speculation, which is quite popular among his supporters, and point out that the NCP has never been able to elect more than nine MPs to the Lok Sabha. His supporters are equally quick to refer to the 17 MPs that H.D. Deve Gowda had when he became the prime minister. To emerge as a consensus builder or as a consensus candidate, one needs to have friends across the aisles and Sharad Pawar is a natural when it comes to bringing disparate groups and individuals together. In Maharashtra he is credited to have brought the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) together; and it was apparently at his behest that Uddhav Thackeray apologised in the assembly for the Shiv Sena’s flirtation with Hindutva and mixing religion with politics. This made it possible for the Congress to join hands with the Shiv Sena.

Pawar is also credited with having kept the MVA together. His sage counsel to Uddhav Thackeray to keep away from communal and parochial politics seems to have paid dividends in the latest round of APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee) elections in the state, which the MVA swept. The election in the rural areas of Maharashtra is no less significant than the general election and is considered a barometer of the political mood among the farmers.

But that doesn’t prevent him from calling on Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde at his residence. Shinde looked distinctly uncomfortable and unhappy as photographers had a field day. The meeting set off a buzz that Pawar was inching closer to the BJP and the breakaway faction of the Shiv Sena. But a poker-faced Pawar explained the meeting away by claiming that he had gone to invite the chief minister to a function and that he had several public grievances that he wanted Shinde to address.

At 83, Pawar is exactly the same age as the former Congress president Sitaram Kesri was when he withdrew support from the Deve Gowda government in 1997. Everyone expected Pawar to split the Congress and join up with Deve Gowda, with whom he appeared to enjoy a rapport as a leader of farmers.

But friendship or no friendship, Pawar seldom does anything which does not benefit him. He made it clear that he had no intention of splitting the party. “I still have at least 20 years of active political life left in me. Why should I jeopardise my career for someone for whom it is time to retire?” he candidly asked an interlocutor.

Pawar did leave the Congress in 1999 over the question of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. He left with several leaders and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). While many of the rebel Congress leaders have returned to the party and Pawar himself mended fences to become the Union agriculture minister in the UPA, he has nurtured the NCP and possibly believes that 2024 will be the year when a coalition government of disparate Opposition parties may have to look to him to bring them together.

“There are just 10 to 11 months left for the next Lok Sabha polls and we are all coming together—Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, K. Chandrashekar Rao and Arvind Kejriwal are all coming together for Opposition unity,” he had said soon after withdrawing his resignation.

Significantly, none of these leaders are Congress-friendly and Pawar has indicated that he is there to broker both seat adjustments and a minimum programme.

Even his enemies concede that they do themselves a disfavour by thinking that Pawar is of no consequence. He is no longer just a Congress ally but someone that neither the Congress nor any other parties can do without. Many of them do not see eye to eye and are looking up to Pawar (who they do not consider a long-term threat to their own political aspirations) to act as the cementing force.

If Pawar can pull off Opposition unity and ensure that the BJP is defeated in the election, who can keep him from the top job in the country?