No power for Pawar

In the 16 months since it was born, the national party8217; status conferred on it by the Election Commission is probably the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party8217;s only noteworthy achievement. But as the just-concluded national convention of the party at Nagpur has brought into focus, even these credentials are only a false conceit. The NCP could only lay claim to this honour through a feat of arithmetic: it has registered votes and seats in the mandatory number of four states 8212; Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, the Andamans and Maharashtra. But the problem is that none of these, except for Maharashtra, count for very much on the country8217;s political map. The problem, further, is that the NCP shows little signs of making any inroads into any of the larger, politically high profile states. The brave posturing in the last few days at Nagpur cannot have fooled many, least of all the canny Sharad Pawar. Over a year after its defiant birth, the NCP is an outfit still floundering in search of a constituency andprogramme beyond its home turf of Maharashtra.

The NCP8217;s failure is actually the tragedy of Sharad Pawar. Touted as the Maratha strongman, as one of the few leaders within the Sonia-led Congress who could still boast of a mass base and as the man destined for bigger things, Pawar8217;s breakaway from the party had seemed, then, to be a cataclysmic event. The issue 8212; party chief Sonia Gandhi8217;s foreign origins 8212; was an emotive one. Speculation was rife that more discontented Congressmen would desert the Congress to follow Pawar and that he would become the nucleus of a Congress away from the Congress. The expected exodus did not happen. The failure of the Pawar-Sangma-Tariq Anwar troika to wean away enough Congressmen to effect anything close to a vertical split in the party soon became obvious. As it turned out, Sharad Pawar depleted the Congress ranks only in the party8217;s Maharashtra unit; almost everywhere else, he drew a virtual blank. The truth is that in Maharashtra, too, Pawar only managed to play spoiler of the Congress chances; he failed to emerge asnumero uno in the ensuing assembly elections in the state. Worse was to follow. After the elections, Sharad Pawar8217;s NCP entered into an alliance with the Sonia-led Congress to form the government in Maharashtra. Even in times when opportunism is being willingly confused with pragmatism, Sharad Pawar8217;s sleeping with the enemy before the vitriolic name-calling had had a chance to die down stands out as realpolitik of the transparently opportunistic kind.

Today, Sharad Pawar8217;s band is in an unenviable position. It shouts hoarse against Sonia Gandhi in Nagpur and cohabits with her party in Mumbai. It lays claim to the quot;main secular spacequot; even as it finds it difficult to expand beyond its pockets in Maharashtra. The writing on the wall is clear for all to read 8212; after all these years, and despite the hue and cry, Sharad Pawar remains only a regional boss. Let8217;s face it, whatever the EC may say, the NCP is no national party.