With Maharashtra’s electorate yet to recover from the shock of rebel Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar’s sudden alignment with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), two consecutive ‘surprise’ calls by the rebel faction on NCP chief Sharad Pawar have stupefied political pundits.
On July 15, nearly two weeks after being sworn-in as Deputy CM and splitting the NCP, Ajit Pawar had visited his uncle Sharad Pawar’s ‘Silver Oak’ residence in Mumbai to meet his aunt and Mr. Pawar’s wife, Pratibha, who was discharged after recently undergoing a surgery.
While this was justified as a courtesy call (given Ajit’s closeness to his aunt), the younger Mr. Pawar then paid two unscheduled calls to his uncle at Mumbai’s Y.B. Chavan Center on July 16 and 17, accompanied first by the Ministers of his rebel NCP faction and then by the rebel MLAs.
On both occasions, rebel NCP leader Praful Patel solemnly told reporters they had merely come to seek the “guidance” of their “idol” Sharad Pawar and entreat him to think on party unity.
The visits to seek Mr. Pawar’s guidance after his nephew split the party was bewildering given that the rebel faction, in a meeting on June 30, had already elected Ajit Pawar as the NCP party president.
That said, the contrite tone of the rebel camp leaders after the two meetings was in stark contrast to their recent speeches and statements where Mr. Patel, Ajit Pawar and Chhagan Bhujbal had vocally expressed their frustration about Mr. Pawar’s “stubbornness” and functioning style. (In his speech on July 5 following his swearing-in, Ajit had exposed his uncle’s dalliances with the BJP while exhorting him to retire from politics and make way for others.)
In contrast, there was no such contriteness after Eknath Shinde’s June 2022 revolt against his then chief, Uddhav Thackeray – a coup that brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Mr. Thackeray.
At that time, no sooner had the rebel Sena leaders’ plane touched Guwahati in Assam than recriminations flew thick and fast between the rival factions. While the Thackeray camp dubbed the Shinde faction “traitors” who had sold out to the BJP for power and pelf, the Shinde camp MLAs accused Thackeray aide Sanjay Raut of trying to finishing-off the Shiv Sena allegedly at the behest of Sharad Pawar, the Sena’s ally in the MVA.
Mr. Raut vented spleen on the Shinde camp, calling them “living corpses” while Shinde camp leaders claimed they were fighting for the preservation of the party’s “self-esteem.”
The reasons given by Eknath Shinde’s camp to justify its revolt against Uddhav Thackeray – namely that Mr. Thackeray never gave them time nor visited the Mantralaya (State Secretariat) but surrounded himself with a palace coterie and locked himself up in his residence – cannot be said of Sharad Pawar by the rebel NCP faction.
According to analysts, the visits by the rebels could be attributed to the fear vexing the Ajit Pawar camp that a significant chunk of the party rank-and-file still stood with Mr. Pawar senior.
The surprise visits follow a survey by a leading vernacular newspaper showing that the electorate in Maharashtra has not taken kindly to Ajit Pawar’s coup and his splitting of the NCP, with many still siding with Sharad Pawar.
They also come after the 82-year-old NCP patriarch held a forceful rally at Yeola in Nashik, which is the constituency of prominent rebel camp leader Chhagan Bhujbal.
The Yeola rally, as with Pawar senior’s show of strength at Karad soon after his nephew’s rebellion, proved he retained a groundswell of support, particularly among the youth.
The rebel NCP faction is also wary of the public sympathy that Uddhav Thackeray gained after Mr. Shinde unceremoniously toppled him.
They certainly will remember Sharad Pawar’s eye-catching pre-2019 Assembly election speech in Satara, which become a visual shorthand for the Opposition’s fight against the BJP and did much to rally public opinion behind the NCP. It saw the NCP’s tally rise from 42 to 54 after the 2019 poll results.
The rival Shiv Sena camps had become embroiled in bitter legal battles at the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India almost immediately after the split, with Mr. Shinde’s faction staking claim to the party name and symbol.
Given the stakes were about the legitimacy of the new government, the rancour was all the more acute.
In contrast, both rival NCP camps are treading cautiously, with Sharad Pawar not resorting to any kind of invective to chastise his nephew’s faction and the rebel leaders being restrained in their remarks after Mr. Pawar’s Nashik tour.
A crucial point in case of a potential legal tussle is that Mr. Shinde, at the time of his revolt, was the Shiv Sena’s Legislature Party leader in the Assembly and had more force while claiming leadership of the party. In contrast, Jayant Patil, who is the NCP’s Legislature Party leader, is a staunch Sharad Pawar loyalist.
So, unlike the Shinde- and Thackeray camps, the Ajit Pawar-led group is taking care to ensure that their bridges are not completely burnt.
“In the event the conflict escalates and the rival NCP factions are compelled to go to court, the Ajit Pawar group can claim to the party rank-and-file that while they did try to mitigate the turmoil, Pawar senior proved unyielding,” said a Mumbai-based analyst.
