Who, where, how, when: A 2019 Maharashtra meeting that won’t end

Not that it hasn’t happened before, since what happened at the meeting shook up old partnerships, forged some new ones, and broke apart parties that held loyalty till then to one supreme leader.

So here are the many versions, so far, of what transpired when the rivals-with-benefits BJP and NCP met – barring the version of the Adani Group, which declined to comment:

Ajit Pawar

In an interview with The News Minute-Newslaundry, the NCP chief and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister who continues to fight off accusations of betraying his uncle and mentor Sharad Pawar, not just now but also in 2019, reiterated that the meeting five years ago happened very much with Pawar Senior’s go-ahead.

Ajit was asked why he had switched over to the BJP following the 2019 Assembly polls, had a controversial early-morning swearing-in, formed a government lasting barely 80 hours in which he was Deputy Chief Minister, only to return to the fold of Sharad Pawar. Ajit said: “I was just obeying my leader (Sharad Pawar). Everyone knows where the meeting took place… Everyone was there. Let me tell you again. Amit Shah was there, Gautam Adani was there, Praful Patel was there, Devendra Fadnavis was there, Ajit Pawar was there, Pawar Saheb (Sharad Pawar) was there.”

Asked why Sharad Pawar did not cross over, while he did after the meeting, Ajit said: “Pawar saheb is a leader about whom no one in the world knows what he has in mind. Neither Aunty (Pawar senior’s wife) nor (his daughter) Supriya Sule can tell.”

As the Opposition seized on the remarks as proof of their allegations regarding Adani’s influence in the Modi-led BJP, Ajit backtracked in an interview with The Indian Express. Asked whether he stood by his remarks that top NCP and BJP leaders, along with Adani, discussed options of government formation after the 2019 results, Ajit said: “No such thing happened. He (Gautam Adani) was not there. One of the meetings was at his guest house. Those meetings were held at different places, and for one of the meetings, we met there (at the guest house).”

In a subsequent interview with ANI, Ajit said: “I said that he (Adani) was not there. The guest house was his. These meetings happen in different places, like hotels and guest houses. We were in Adani’s guest house. There is no role of industry in the formation of the government of a state. We stay very busy sometimes. I gave two interviews, now there is the third, the fourth. Then I have to go to five meetings too. Maybe I said something by mistake. I am human; humans do commit mistakes.”

Asked whether he had been pressured to change his earlier statement, he said, “Ask in Maharashtra if Ajit Pawar bows to anyone under pressure. I never come under pressure from anyone.”

In one of his Maharashtra campaign rallies, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has led the charge against the BJP government over the Adani issue, said: “Their leader has said that Adani ji was present in the meeting… Why was Adani sitting in a political meeting? Because he wants Dharavi. This government has facilitated Rs 1 lakh crore profit to Adani.”

Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi posted on X, “As per an interview given to a digital platform by a senior minister in the Cabinet, Gautam Adani has sat through in meetings to decide how to get BJP to power in Maharashtra by trying to fix unlikely alliances. It raises some serious questions: Is he a BJP authorised negotiator? Has he been given the responsibility to fix alliances? Why is a businessman so keenly and closely working to bring BJP to power at any cost in Maharashtra?”

Sharad Pawar

It was the veteran’s turn to explain Adani and the meeting next. In an interview to The News Minute-Newslaundry, the NCP(SP) chief said that the meeting between NCP and BJP leaders did take place, but at the industrialist’s house in Delhi. And that, while Adani was not a part of it, later he hosted a dinner for all of them.

Asked why he had met BJP leaders – the NCP and BJP had fought the Assembly elections as rivals – Pawar said that his party colleagues facing cases told him that the Centre would withdraw the same if the then undivided NCP supported the BJP to form a government in Maharashtra. He added that he was not convinced that the BJP would keep its word, but his colleagues asked him to attend a meeting and “hear it straight from the horse’s mouth”. This is how, he said, he attended the meeting at Adani’s place in the national capital.

Pawar described his meeting with BJP leaders as a strategic “googly” to expose the BJP’s “hunger for power” and their willingness to “align with anyone” to gain control in the state.

Incidentally, Pawar’s daughter Sule has said she didn’t know of any such meeting between BJP and NCP leaders. “Let me be very clear that I have absolutely no knowledge of any such meeting of the attendees which he (Ajit) has mentioned in the interview,” she said.

Devendra Fadnavis

In an interview to The Hindu, the senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis chipped in next, admitting that such a meeting had taken place in Delhi, but not at Adani’s residence.

According to Fadnavis, the meeting – attended by Amit Shah, Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel and himself – took place after the head of the then united Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray, fell out with the BJP. And that the meeting was called by Sharad Pawar, who phoned him up, saying they could explore joining hands in the context of the new situation.

Fadnavis also claimed that Pawar was all for the imposition of President’s Rule so that he could campaign in the state for the need of a stable government, and even portfolio distributions were discussed.

Sharad Pawar, circa December 2021

With the NCP still united under him and Ajit a loyal lieutenant, Sharad Pawar said then that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was keen on an NCP-BJP alliance government in Maharashtra after the 2019 Assembly polls.

Speaking at the release of a coffee table book, “Ashtavadhani”, launched by The Indian Express Group’s ‘Loksatta’ Marathi daily, Pawar said he met the PM on November 20, 2019. “There was a discussion about an alliance… I told the PM right in his office that it was not possible… that I did not want to keep them in the dark.”

The NCP national spokesperson at the time, Nawab Malik, endorsed that the meeting happened in Parliament House, and said he too was present. “There was an offer from the PM and we discussed it in our party and decided against it… Then Pawar Saheb conveyed it to the PM,” Malik said.

On whether the NCP chieftain sent Ajit to form the short-lived government with the BJP — just three days after this meeting he claimed he had had with Modi – Pawar quipped: “If that was so, then I would not have left the job incomplete!”

When asked about this at the time, Shiv Sena (then united) MP Sanjay Raut claimed full knowledge about what was happening, adding that his party, the NCP and Congress were already in the process of finalising the Maha Vikas Aghadi by then.

“We all were aware of who’s talking what and with whom… We even had knowledge of what was happening on the Devendra Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar front,” Raut said.