© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
While Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar perhaps never expected it to blow up to this, his party’s openness towards the BJP – if not flirtation with it — has never really been a secret in Maharashtra.
Having rebelled against Pawar Senior along with 31 NCP MLAs and become part of the BJP government in the state, Ajit Pawar has been pointing to this history of the NCP’s dalliance with the BJP, pooh pooing criticism of it as hypocritical.
Those who know the NCP well point to a simple truth, which is one pointer to where the party stands now: that between its formation in 1999, after splitting from the Congress, and 2014, the NCP was never out of power in the state.
It has been nearly a decade since — barring the three years that the NCP was in the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government – with no guarantee of a return in 2024.
Soon after Pawar rebelled against the Congress over Sonia Gandhi’s leadership and formed the NCP in 1999, the Maratha leader was offered a role in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) by its leader and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee — as mentioned by Pawar in his autobiography Lok Maze Sangati (People are my Companions).
He refused the offer, joined hands with the Congress for the Maharashtra Assembly elections soon after, but ensured that his cordial relationship with Vajpayee and the BJP continued. This survived even after the UPA came to power in 2004, dislodging Vajpayee, with Pawar a key leader in the Manmohan Singh government.
Pawar also mentions in his autobiography that during the UPA government, he took the initiative to set up a channel of communication between then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and the Congress-led Union government that was bitterly opposed to him.
For the BJP, tying up with the NCP is only win-win, with the party having allied with several regional parties across states over the years, which do not share its Hindutva ideology. The list includes the Peoples Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir, JD(U), Trinamool Congress, DMK, JD(S) in Karnataka, the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, and the Akali Dal in Punjab. This has helped the party gain an entry in states where it had minuscule presence.
In Maharashtra, as long as it had an alliance with the Shiv Sena, particularly when the latter was at its height under the late Bal Thackeray, the BJP never felt the need for another ally. With that alliance breaking, and the Sena split, the NCP was always the next best option for the BJP.
What also makes the NCP an attractive partner for the BJP is that the party has powerful leaders who are seen to command voter loyalty in their respective constituencies irrespective of party allegiance. An elected constituent of the NCP brings along a large chunk of voters.
That was not the case with the BJP’s Sena ally Eknath Shinde, for example, who had failed to win over Sena cadres to his faction.
On paper now, the alliance of the NCP and Sena factions with the BJP – a mix of regional and national – outweighs the MVA when it comes to both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
NCP leaders hope to return to power, key to retaining their voter base – and get around inquiries by Central agencies against many of them.
In his first address to supporters after his rebellion, Ajit said that back in 2014, the NCP and BJP first considered the possibility of a coalition. At the time, miffed with the then Congress-led government of Prithviraj Chavan, the NCP and Congress had decided to fight the Lok Sabha elections separately. With the BJP and Shiv Sena – post Bal Thackeray’s death and Narendra Modi’s rise – also drifting apart, discussions were held between the NCP and BJP, as per Ajit.
“In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a proposal was mooted for the NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP to contest together, with each party contesting 16 seats. The BJP later backed out of this due to reservations of some leaders. Some like Nitin Gadkari were keen, but local BJP leaders objected,” Ajit said Wednesday.
According to him, in 2017, the two parties again approached each other. “But the BJP was not willing to leave the Shiv Sena. And our leaders said we will not go with the Shiv Sena since it’s a ‘communal’ party.”
How then, Ajit asked, did the same Shiv Sena become okay in 2019, when “we were asked to join hands with it” to form the MVA.
The NCP rebel leader and newly sworn in Maharashtra Deputy CM also repeated that his surprise oath-taking ceremony in the early hours of 2019 for a coalition government with the BJP was part of his uncle Sharad Pawar’s plan.
“Five meetings had taken place at the residence of a prominent businessman of the country. Senior BJP and NCP leaders were present. The decision was taken and I was asked to go (for the swearing-in). Later, everything was rolled back and we went with the Shiv Sena,” Ajit said.
Again, he said, in 2022, when the Shiv Sena split and the MVA government teetered, the NCP was in favour of joining hands to be in government with the BJP. “A meeting had taken place… I have a letter with the signatures of all the MLAs,” he said. But then the BJP eventually tied up with the Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde.
Ajit raised question marks on Sharad Pawar’s way of doing politics, of keeping multiple cards in play and keeping allies second-guessing, only to push his own politics. He pointed fingers at the entire drama surrounding Pawar Senior’s resignation. “He told me he wanted to resign and look after the various institutions he has set up. He told me he was planning to set up a committee of senior NCP leaders, including me, which would appoint Supriya Sule as party president. We accepted this proposal. However, a few days later, he withdrew his resignation. What was the point of resigning if you had planned to withdraw it later?” Ajit asked.
The question on everyone’s lips then is, how much did Sharad Pawar know, particularly given the long rope he gave to Ajit. And can the veteran, once celebrated as a man with friends across all parties, retain those friendships now?
