Journalism of Courage
The 82-year-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar had to do some straight talk on Monday evening in a bid to paper over the rifts in the Opposition camp and sharpen its focus on the formidable battle against the Narendra Modi dispensation and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead.
What gave urgency to Pawar’s move was a flare-up in tension between the Congress and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) over Rahul Gandhi’s barbs at Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Both these parties along with the NCP form the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra, Pawar’s home state.
The ideological faultline between the Congress and the Sena (UBT) again surfaced last Saturday when Rahul, while responding to a reporter’s question on the BJP’s demand for his apology, said, “My name is not Savarkar. I am a Gandhi. I won’t apologise.”
Addressing a rally at Malegaon the next day, Uddhav warned Rahul against insulting Savarkar, saying that he and his party would not tolerate it.
To mark its protest, the Sena (UBT) also skipped the dinner meeting of the Opposition parties, hosted by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi Monday, in which Pawar made his intervention.
Highly-placed MVA sources, who attended Kharge’s dinner, said that Pawar told the meeting that “Savarkar, who is revered by people in Maharashtra, never shared cordial relations with RSS and had formed his own organisation Hindu Mahasabha.”
Seeking to steer the MVA away from contentious ideological issues, Pawar asserted that the Opposition should keep its focus trained on its fight against the BJP and the Modi government.
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul were also present at the dinner meeting, with sources saying that the Kharge-led Congress camp supported Pawar’s suggestion.
In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections, Pawar seems to be playing the role of a key facilitator for ensuring the unity of the Opposition parties.
While the NCP has always taken on the RSS and the BJP over their politics of communal polarisation, the party has always exercised caution not to criticise nationalist figures like Savarkar.
Senior Maharashtra NCP leader and Leader of Opposition, Ajit Pawar, recently told a function in Baramati: “We believe in inclusive politics. Our party has always believed in showing highest reverence to freedom fighters and reformers. We believe in taking along with us people of all castes, communities and religions.”
NCP sources said, “Rahul Gandhi was convicted by a Gujarat court for his remarks on Modi. He should have retaliated hard by expressing his anger against BJP. Why did he drag Savarkar without realising that such remarks shift the focus away from BJP and Modi.”
The NCP camp believes that it will not be possible to fight the BJP-Eknath Shinde Sena in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls without ensuring a cohesion in the MVA ranks. The NCP feels that unless the MVA remains intact the division of “secular votes” will put the ruling alliance at an advantage, pointing out that PM Modi will remain the latter’s principal campaigner in the polls.
There also seems to be a concern in the NCP that both Rahul and Uddhav have their own compulsions to pursue their respective agendas, putting the MVA under further strain.
Reeling under intense pressure from the BJP-Shinde Sena over Hindutva, Uddhav cannot afford to be seen to be going soft on the issue.
Uddhav had told the Malegaon rally how even after forging an alliance with the Congress and NCP to form the MVA government in 2019, he had never compromised with the Sena’s core agenda of Hindutva. “Show me one instance where I have compromised on Hindutva,” he said.
Uddhav’s strident pitch at the Sunday rally and his party’s move to skip Kharge-convened meet was meant to send out a signal to their core support base and shiv sainiks about their continued commitment to the cause of Hindutva.
As the BJP and Shinde Sena fired salvos at Uddhav over Rahul’s Savarkar remarks, Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said, “BJP has no right to question us on Hindutva. People know our Hindutva commitment.”
