The fading power of sharad pawar

MUMBAI: As the NDA’s Presidential nominee Ram Nath Kovind filed his papers in Delhi on Friday, NCP president Sharad Pawar was discussing the state government’s farm loan waiver with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis. A day earlier, when Opposition parties were to meet to decide their nominee, Pawar was busy with a delegation of farmers and wanted the meeting to be postponed.
Pawar loyalists highlight these two meetings to boast the relevance he has in the state and national politics, while others point to these incidents as an indication that he is of little political relevance.

Pawar today is a shadowy reflection of his former self—from a first-time MLA in 1967, two-time Maharashtra CM, the frontrunner for Prime Minister after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassiantion in 1991, to finally breaking away from the Congress to form the NCP in 1999. His ability to cut across party lines and make friends out of foes made him one of India’s best politicians. And if he weren’t a neta, he would be “a farmer”, the “shrewd politician” has oft said.
For the Congress and the BJP, Pawar was relevant until now as he had good influence over regional parties such as BJD in Odisha, DMK in Tamil Nadu, JD(U) in Bihar and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. But this Presidential poll have proved that he is losing hold over these parties, said a Maharashtra Congress leader.

The BJP government in the state seems to be successful in pacifying the farmers. They would now announce the final scheme for loan waiver and take the political credit for it, leaving the Opposition and Shiv Sena with no issues to corner the government.

“Shiv Sena appears to have decided to fall in line with the BJP after repeatedly demeaning it for two years. They are unlikely to give any trouble to the BJP soon unless they decide to fight the Parliamentary polls separately. If that happens, it will render the NCP worthless in state politics,” a Maharashtra Congress leader said. “The NCP allying with the Congress and smaller Opposition parties on the farmers’ loan waiver issues indicates their declining clout. If they decide to come with us (the Congress), they’ll lose the last bit of relevance they have.”

A senior Shiv Sena leader too indicated the changed party line viz-a-viz BJP after the meeting between BJP president Amit Shah and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray. “We’ve been asked to go soft on the BJP,” the leader said.
The NCP and ultimately Pawar will be the biggest losers if the politics in the state unfolds in the way these leaders have said.