In politics, there are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests. For decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar were like-minded friends. Modi treated the Maratha maverick as a mentor. About four years ago, he confessed “I have no hesitation in accepting that Pawar held my hand and taught me to walk in my early days in Gujarat.” Pawar promptly returned the compliment saying “I get surprised by the way Modi works. Yesterday, he was in Japan and in the morning he went to Goa.
In the afternoon, Modi came to Belgaum and now he is at VSI. This shows his total commitment to the cause of the country.” They were rhetorically reciprocal, with Pawar hosting Modi in Baramati and Modi conferring the Padma Vibhushan on him in 2017. Though Pawar leads a minimum party, he has enjoyed maximum influence over the national political discourse. But the political powerhouse in the trademark white shirt and trousers is now going through the darkest phase of his 60-year-old career. He survived the might of the Gandhi Parivar. But will the Modi menace diminish his standing as a leader
of substance?
While the distance between Baramati and Raisina Hill remains intact, both Pawar and Modi have grown apart by miles of mind games. Once, they would talk to each other daily and meet frequently; now they rarely communicate, let alone meet socially or politically. Today the Congress is without a leader. But Pawar remains relevant. A few weeks before the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Enforcement Directorate registered a criminal case of money laundering against Pawar, his former deputy chief minister, nephew Ajit Pawar, and a few others in connection with the `25,000-crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam.
Corruption charges aren’t new for Pawar, who has faced many during the past 40 years. So far none of them had threatened to derail his career. The ED action didn’t come as a surprise, either. From the BJP’s point of view, it was about weaponising Modi’s fight against corruption and initiating action against graft, irrespective of person, post or position. The NCP perceives it as the Centre intimidating leaders who have spoken against Modi or pose a threat.
The party, plagued by desertions and unable to attract fresh talent, is undoubtedly in no position to halt the saffron spree in Maharashtra. Advancing years and poor health have eroded Pawar’s ability to rekindle his charisma fading, mass appeal and Opposition unifier status. On his 75th birthday, Pawar released his autobiography On My Terms: From the Grassroots to the Corridors of Power. Those were salad days of a feast on its last course: along with Modi, leaders of all ideologies and extremities were present onstage to extol his skills. Modi even joked that Pawar knew very well what to do and when. The PM was not off the mark.
Pawar is a political grandmaster who excels in moving pawns to reach checkmate. In 1978, the Congress won the state polls but Vasantdada Patil became the CM instead of Pawar. Five months later, in July, Pawar jumped ship to float the Indian National Congress (Socialist), toppled Patil and became the CM. When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she vengefully dismissed his government exiling Pawar to half a decade in the Opposition.
Yet, he holds the record as Maharashtra’s youngest chief minister at 38 years of age. Those glory days of martyrdom, ménage and manipulation are gone. In spite of repeated electoral setbacks, Pawar is perhaps the only regional leader whose name would habitually pop up on power punters’ charts as a potential prime minister until Modi swept India first in 2014 and then in 2019 . This time, pundits who had been predicting a hung parliament before votes were counted had prophesied that Pawar would be the consensus leader since he was wheeling and dealing to create an anti-BJP front.
Pawar had always enjoyed power, in and out of the chair—his relationship with the Gandhis a case in point. Soon after Indira Gandhi’s passing, attempts were made to bring the subsequent Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Pawar together. Pawar then became the fall guy for Shiv Sena’s expanding credibility and base in the state. To dry clean his image, the power play prodigal rejoined the Congress in 1987 citing “the need to save the Congress Culture in Maharashtra”. In June 1988, Rajiv rewarded Pawar by making him the chief minister. Two years later, although the Congress failed to get an absolute majority, Pawar was able to form the government with the support of 12 Independents.
The Maratha Maven’s eyes were always set on the ultimate prize—New Delhi, but the vagaries of political destiny has denied him the throne. Soon after Rajiv’s assassination in May 1991, Pawar and his supporters were under the impression that he would be chosen as the Congress boss. Instead, the mantle of Congress president and prime minister fell on P V Narasimha Rao and Pawar became the defence minister.
Their relationship was mutually uncomfortable. Rao confessed to his confidantes that he felt threatened by three persons in New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi, Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar. When communal riots raged across Maharashtra after the Babri Masjid fell, Rao used the opportunity to pack off Pawar to his state as chief minister. But Pawar was back in New Delhi soon after the Congress lost the 1996 general elections. This time the target was the Congress presidency but Sitaram Kesari, backed by Sonia Gandhi, outmanoeuvred him. When Sonia unceremoniously got rid of Kesari in 1998, Pawar’s hopes rose again but she took over the catbird seat at 1 Akbar Road herself.
This signalled the end of Pawar’s national ambitions. As Leader of the Opposition, he established cordial relations with Atal Bihari Vajpayee. When Lok Sabha elections were announced in 1999, Pawar obliquely targeted Sonia by writing that only an India-born leader can become the prime minister. He was expelled. Even out in the cold Sharad Pawar was a hot potato, and fathered the NCP. The Congress and he pragmatically kissed and made up soon and Pawar joined the UPA government in 2004.
With Father Time looming on the horizon, father Pawar launched daughter Supriya Sule as his political successor. Since then, for 15 years, he has been seeking to regain his lost centrality by seeking an alternative to the BJP. Sharad Pawar has been betrayed by his own illusion that administrative acumen and agrarian advocacy would make him the undisputed leader of a rainbow coalition. The ED missile could not have come at a worse time since the tamed Maratha lion was raring to roar again, perhaps for the last time in the political jungle.