NCP at a crossroads, Maratha politics in flux: Does BJP stand to gain?

At the village of Godawali, a traditional NCP stronghold with an 80% Maratha population, people were trying to come to terms with the new reality. In one Maratha-Kunbi family, the daughter-in-law felt that Sunetra was the best person to succeed “Ajit dada” because she “knew more than anyone else “about her husband’s work and was best placed to carry it forward. “What’s more,” she went on, “as the first woman Deputy CM of Maharashtra, she may do more to address women’s concerns.”

Her mother-in-law had a different take. It “was not good” to have been sworn in with such an “unseemly haste”, she said. “They should have at least waited for the customary 13 days.” However, her politically savvy husband, who had run the local government, was quick to point out the political implications: “You cannot afford to leave a political vacuum for long.” Thirteen days, for him, was too long.

The Marathas are suddenly feeling insecure. With the death of Ajit and with Sharad Pawar being 85 years old, they now sense a leadership vacuum that did not exist in a state where they have been at the helm since its formation in 1960. They spoke about the role of the NCP’s “non-Maratha quartet” — Praful Patel, Chagan Bhujbal, Sunil Tatkare, and Dhananjay Munde — that moved with alacrity to install Sunetra on the chair before Sharad Pawar had the chance to get into the unity act.

In the given situation, some felt that the Shiv Sena leader and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde, also a Maratha but seen to represent urban areas such as Thane, could gain. Yet others saw the Marathas moving back to Sharad Pawar, even though he is old — particularly if he made a bid for their support — and many await his next move. They could also look at the Congress with new eyes, if the party “plays the game right”, as one put it.

A big shock

Ajit Pawar’s death has shaken the Pawar clan, convulsed the NCP that Sharad Pawar founded in 1999, and made the Marathas, who make up an estimated 35% of the state’s population and whose support has undergirded the party, suddenly feel “orphaned”.

The complex and overlapping personal and political relationships within the Pawar family drew them together after Ajit’s death. The family was seen closing ranks at the funeral held at the sprawling grounds of the Vidya Pratishthan campus in Baramati. But soon thereafter, the differences surfaced.

Ajit was mentored by Sharad Pawar, but broke the party in 2023, upstaged his uncle, and joined the BJP-led Mahayuti government, with the party name and symbol allotted to his group the following year. In the recent municipal corporation elections, the two groups came together in their stronghold of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, but ended up losing to the BJP.

Sharad Pawar has publicly said he was neither consulted nor informed about the decision to make Sunetra the Deputy CM, and neither he nor his daughter, Baramati MP Supriya Sule, attended the swearing-in ceremony. Sunetra and her two sons took off for Mumbai instead of attending the meeting that Pawar senior had called last Friday to consider the road ahead. After Sunetra took the oath, he made it clear that the reunification process had been “discontinued”.

The unanswered question

No one has chosen to speak about the critical question that would have followed the merger of the two parties. And this is the curious part of the story. Had the parties united, would the combined entity have sided with the Mahayuti in Maharashtra and with the NDA in Delhi in line with Ajit Pawar’s publicly held position? Or would it have decided to remain in the Opposition INDIA bloc, of which Pawar senior’s NCP (SP) is a part?

Soon after the plane crash, when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for a Supreme Court-monitored enquiry, claiming Ajit was planning to exit the Mahayuti, Sharad Pawar shut down the speculation immediately, saying his nephew’s death should not be politicised.

Though the senior Pawar has said several times he won’t join hands with the BJP, there was a buzz last month that he could retire (if he can do that at all) and the unified party would align with the NDA, with Sule joining the Union government.

The manner in which people turned up at Ajit Pawar’s funeral and the spontaneous way hoardings by citizens’ groups and individuals in western Maharashtra also showed the changing nature of people’s expectations from their leaders. Cast in his uncle’s mould of being a “mass leader”, Ajit Pawar believed power was the medium to help people and develop the state. And his popularity arose from doing “people’s work”, solving the problems they came to him with.

For the moment, the NCP has been weakened, the attempt to reunite, which would have given it greater manoeuvrability, “discontinued”, and the powerful Maratha community seems to be up for grabs.

All this could mean advantage BJP. The Devendra Fadnavis-led coalition continues to be comfortable with Sunetra’s induction, with the CM, for the moment, taking away the critical Finance and Planning portfolios her husband had held. Sunetra Pawar may also help Fadnavis ward off pressures from Shinde, who has been demanding rotational leadership of the cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The voices from the ground and the recent developments in Baramati and Mumbai are signs of a situation loaded with new possibilities. The BJP will use them to its advantage, and Fadnavis appears to be skilfully playing his cards.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide.)