From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times of India podcast. See, there are two possibilities
here. One, that he knew it and it did
not have his sanction, but he allowed it to happen because he
was simply getting tired of being badgered and bullied by
all these people. And the second thing is that he
probably set it up and he set it up in such a fashion he probably
took only his close acolytes into confidence, which I would
say would be Supriya, would be Arjit and would be Praful Patel
and at the most delay Pulse Patel.
And and told them that you go there but nobody should have a
whisper of whisper of what has really happened.
And and nobody should presume that I'm supporting you.
So you people will be saying these things against me.
I'll be saying these things against you.
And then we will see a 10 months down the line what to do about
it. That possibility is also there
which Sharad Pawar, you can never write off anything.
That's Sujata Anandhan explaining the two theories
about the decision taken by NCP leader Ajit Pawar to join the
Bharatiya Janta Party and Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra.
The BJP Shiv Sena government itself was formed thanks to a
split in the Shiv Sena, with Eknath Chindi switching sides
with the majority of the party's Mla's.
Ajit Pawar and eight other senior Nationalist Congress
Party or NCP leaders was sworn in as ministers on Sunday, the
2nd of July, after they announced their decision to
switch sides. Ajit Pawar was reinstated as
deputy chief minister, a post he held in the NCP Congress Shiv
Sena alliance that existed in the state from 2019 to 2022.
Sujata Anandhan, who's a journalist, columnist and
political analyst, has been writing on Sharad Pawar and
Maharashtra politics for years. She says there's one common
thing among the NCP leaders who switched sides on Sunday.
All these people who have joined UP, they have joined UP with the
BJP essentially because they have cases pending against them.
And there are reports which say that they went to Sharad Pawar
and they told him that in our old age, we don't want to go and
sit in jail. So you have to join up with the
BJP. Two days after Ajit Pawar
announced his decision to switch sides, it remained unclear how
many NCP lawmakers from the state are actually supporting
him. The initial number was said to
be 40 out of 53 party MLAs. A day later, 2 MLAs who were
said to be supporting Ajit Pawar, switched sides to the
Sharad Pawar faction. Sharad Pawar, who Co founded the
party in 1999 after breaking away from the Congress, said he
wouldn't go to court against his nephew to fight for the party's
symbol or name. However, since then both
factions have declared different people as heads of the
legislative party unit and state unit, showing that the fight may
have just begun. Introduce episode Sujata Anandan
is in conversation with my colleague Alka Dupkar and me
about the ramifications of the split.
She explains why Pawar may have allowed the split to take place
and what it could mean for state and national politics.
The split comes after a prolonged drama in May, which
began with Sharad Pawar offering to resign as the party's
president. In the end, he appointed his
daughter and parliamentarian, Supriya Sulay as one of the
party's working presidents. Pointedly, Nevi Ajit Pawar, who
was rumoured to be attempting a split at the time, was offered
no senior post in the party. Alka started by asking Sujata
about Sharad Pawar's succession plan and whether the split can
be seen as a decision against his proposals.
First, his whole show is run by Praful Patel, who is known as
Sharad. Pawar's man.
So do you think that it was Sharad Pawar's mistake to make
him working president, or was it intentional that he shared power
between his daughter and Praful Patel?
See which Sharad Pawar you can never say.
So you could look at it two ways that Praful Patel has been
standing by his side for all these years, so he probably
trusted. Praful Patel and he's aware of
the fact that many of his supporters do not want to
blindly accept Supriya Sudhey as their leader.
And so he probably was depending upon Praful Patel to ease the
path, ease Supriya's path, and ease the path for other people
to accept Supriya's leadership. That could be one thing.
And the second thing was that yes, he put his daughter in the
case because he knew if there is one person you can trust, you
can trust your your own child. I think the latter is true
because he would not have. Been unaware of how even Praful
Patel was. Trying to persuade the people
that Sharad Pawar is tired, is in need of retirement, allow him
to go, let him rest, etc. And you know, if you know Sharad
Pawar, this is one man. This is one man who will never,
never retire. He will never retire unless
circumstances compel him. So he must have got a little
upset. But knowing it, he probably
divided the positions, knowing that he could ultimately keep a
control over the party by making his daughter also the working
president. Ajit Pawar and senior leader of
NCP, splitting up from the main group.
Does it indicate that they're saying big No to Supriyas
leadership? I think so many of these people
who have now gone with Ajit Pawar are known to be Sharad
Pawar loyalists. And they do not really like Ajit
Pawar, including, I'll tell you, Praful Patel.
Even Praful Patel and Ajit Pawar have been in conflict with each
other for years and years. Bhujbal also Dilipansi Patel is
another quite a few of them. They don't like Ajit Pawar, but
now they are with Ajit. Because even if they don't like
Ajit, they do not want the leadership of Supriya Sule.
They think that, you know, Supriya Sule has been imposed on
them. At least Ajit has had 30 years
at the grassroots. He has built himself up and
Supriya has just come Kal. Kalki, aai Hui, hey And then
shes being imposed, imposed on them.
So that feeling definitely is there because all these guys are
also have been around for 3035 years, you know, So why should
they accept the leadership of somebody whos been there around
only for 10 or 15 years. But Ajit Power, he was former
deputy chief minister of Maharashtra.
So what has Ajit Power gained by revolting against Sharad Powers
leadership And where do you see Ajit Powers political career
going forward from here? This is the 7th time that Ajit
Pawar has been sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister.
If you take in the fact of his resignation during the
Prithviraj Chauhan government when the irrigation scam had
burst into the open, when he had to resign pending an inquiry,
but then he couldn't live without being in the government.
He came back. He got sworn in again.
If you add that, that is the 8th.
Time. So I always say that hes always
the bridesmaid and never the bride.
But he is very, very power, power hungry.
He wants to be chief minister. His uncle managed to become
Chief minister within 10 or 15 years of getting into politics.
Ajit Pawar thought that he will follow the same trajectory.
But Sharad Pawar is a different, different quantity.
There are bound to be comparisons made between Ajit
Pawar and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Chandi, given
how they exited their respective parties.
But Sujata Anandan says there's one fundamental difference
between the high profile rebels in the Shiv Sena and those in
the NCP. See, if Shinde rebelled against
Uddhav Thackeray, I won't blame him as much as I would blame
Ajit Pawar and all these other people.
Because Shinde was something on his own, independent of Bal
Thackeray, independent of Uddhav Thackeray.
He had built up his base. In fact, Balasaheb and Uddha
probably needed him a little bit more than he needed them at that
point of time, but that is. It's not the case with Ajit and
Bujwal and Dilip Bal, say and and other people.
They are what they are today entirely because Sharad Pawar
built them up. Sujatha says that given the
drama that played out after Sharad Pawar offered to resign
as party chief in ME, he may have been happy to see Ajit
Pawar and his supporters depart. If you notice in May when Sharad
Pawat went through that resignation drama, that is the
time when there was a first attempt at the coup.
Now if you noticed Ajit, Praful Patel, all these people were,
you know, begging with the with the NCP workers that Saib is
very tired, Saib wants to retire, let him retire.
So they were trying to forcibly retire him.
And two or three days before that Ajit had made a statement
saying that sometimes it is time for, you know, the elders to
step aside and give way to the younger.
People so they have been trying to do this.
They have been trying to take over take over the party from
within. Now with Praful Patel made the
working president and Ajit Pawar was wanting to resign as leader
of opposition. Bujwal was saying that make an
OBC either the party president or the leader of opposition.
So Mujbal or Dhananjay Mundi would have been a leader of
opposition. Ajit would have been party
president and then it would have been very easy for for them to
take over the party at the center Praful.
Would have endorsed it, but I think Sharad Pawar was
suspicious and had a clue, which is why he never acted on that.
He just kept quiet, he said. I'm considering it and just kept
quiet. He never handed that entire
power, so I think he had a clue that this is eventually going to
happen. He didn't act on it, and in some
ways I think it's a relief to him that they're out of the
party. The whole fight is portrayed as
a fight between Jayantha Patil and Ajit Power.
As you must have seen, they have already initiated Ajit Power
Group has initiated action against Jayant Patil and
Jitendra award. So they are trying to portray
this fight between Ajit Power and Jayantha Patil instead of
Ajit Power versus Sharad Power. Is this a smart move in your
opinion? This battle in the NCP is not
new. It is at least about 7:00 or 8
years old, if you remember in 2014 when the election results
came and the BJP did not get an absolute majority.
And they had broken their alliance with the Shiv Sena.
They got only about 1:20 or 122 seat and they needed about 2020
or 2025 seats more. If you recall, it was Praful
Patel who instantly went on television and he said that we
have decided to support the Devendra Fadnavis government
without the BJP asking. So it has always been Praful
Patel's endeavor to go with the BJP.
Now he's a businessman. He he has connections with
Adani. Adani has many projects in
Gondia and Bandara which is his constituency.
He cannot afford to alienate the BJP.
He cannot afford to alienate Adani.
And that Sharad Pawar's famous interview where he said that
parliamentary committee is not going to solve anything, Adani
has done nothing wrong etc. It was all at the behest of
Praful Patel. You.
I don't think Sharad Pawar actually believed in that but he
has to help out his supporters. So this battle has been for a
very long time and Arna. Now 20/16/2017, I think it was
more like 2017. There was a NCP executive
meeting and at that they came to blows.
Praful Patel on one side and Jain Patel and and Jitendra
Award on the other side. Now Awad and Jain Patel have
always been for alliance with the Congress or at least to stay
secular because they are in constituencies like that.
Awad comes from a Muslim majority constituency and even
Jain Patel is from Western Maharashtra where people are
voting more for the Congress than they are.
Voting for either the Shiv Sena or the BJP.
So he did not want to lose that alliance.
They are on marginal seats so they need this alliance with the
Congress. Whereas Praful Patel always knew
that he's going to get into trouble because Air India got
trouble with her and and and predictably a few years his kind
of association with Iqbal Mirchi came to light.
He knew long before the Congress began calling the BJP a washing
machine. He knew that joining the BJP
means his. He will be washed clean of his
sins or whatever like that. So he was forced.
Sharad Pawar. You know, a lot of Congress
people have complained that he should have done more to nip it
in the bud. Do you think he could have
nipped it in the bud or was he constrained in that respect?
No, he could have nipped it in the bud if he wanted to.
You know the people in the NCP feared Sharad Pawar more than
the people in the Shiv Sena used to feel about it, Thakre,
because Sharad Pawar has different ways of dealing.
If you cross Sharad Pawar, he will socially and politically
completely destroy you. And he has various ways of doing
it. So everybody is afraid of Sharad
Pawar in that sense. In the NCP as well as in the
Congress, if you talk to many congressmen, they have sugar
factories, they have educational institutions.
They do not make a statement against Sharad Pawar, a single
one, because they know that if they cross him, they are liable
to be destroyed by by Pawar. But I think he was at a
particular stage when he was very, very tired of being being
bullied by all these people who wanted to join the BJP.
It was working against his ideology.
Years ago when he formed the first ever coalition government
in 1978, he had taken all members of the Jansang on board.
Jansang was a precursor to the BJP, but it was not the kind of
BJP that we see today. Then, after that, he has had no
truck and no alliance with the BJP except at Praful Patel's
urging. In 2014 when there was a voice
vote in the in the assembly for a confidence motion that
Devendra Fadnavis was undergoing.
At that point of time, probably because the voices were very
loud, probably even the MCP, said I.
But beyond that there has been no no official association with
the BJP. Frankly speaking, he was being
tired of being bullied and badgered and everything and he
felt it is much better if they get out of the party on their
own rather than him having to kick them out.
What does a diminished Sharad power mean for this opposition
unity and this alliance that is said to be in the works?
What does it mean for that alliance itself if Sharad Pawar
himself is a diminished force? Actually, my conviction is that
a weakened Sharad Pawar is good news for the Congress and
opposition unity. He will work.
For opposition unity and he will work for Congress victory with
with more strength, with more vigor, because he will need to
prove himself that it is because of me that this has happened.
So I think it is really very good news for opposition unity
and very good news for for the Congress that Sharad Pawar has
been diminished a little bit. The NCP, while projected as this
Maratha party, also enjoys massive support from the Muslim
community as Ajit Pomar overplayed his hand by believing
that he will just sort of inherit the whole NCP vote bank
in Mars, so to say. Yeah, he has.
He has. If Sharat Pawar is one thing.
He's fiercely secular and he comes from Maharashtra where
there is the fully Shahu Ambedkar ethos.
He's a socialist. He is never going to give up
that he thought. And if you notice when he went
to Karad and Satara, he once again evoked at Yashwant Raj
Chavan Samadhi. He once again evoked Sulesh Rahu
Ambedkar and he said I will never give up this ideology.
I would say that see, we are what, more than a year from the
assembly elections, in about 10 months from the Lok Sabha
elections. As we approach these elections,
know the the shape of this government, the Maharashtra
government, the shape of. The Shindi alliance and the
shape of the NCP alliance is not going to remain the same as it
is today. As the elections approached, I
wouldn't be surprised if there would be a homecoming.
I won't be surprised if they cry, They burst into tears and
then he comes and he falls at his uncle St. and say forgive
me, I was misled and blood is thicker than water.
Should it provide me take him back.
Sujata says that the BJP has been feeling for a while that
they haven't reaped the benefits of splitting the Shiv Sena.
That might be why they ensured A splitting the NCP as well.
But because Sharad Pawan has cultivated A voter base that is
very different from the BJP and Shiv Sena, Sujata says it won't
be easy for the BJP Eknath Shinde, Ajit Pawar alliance.
In any of the upcoming elections in the state.
Why did they need to split up the NCP and take the NCP on
board? Because Shinde was not giving
them the returns that they had expected.
They had expected Uddhav Thakri to collapse, Aditya Thakri to
collapse, That nothing will happen.
They will just walk away and they will just go and sit at
Matoshree. But that didn't happen.
Both father and son fought back in the kind of groundswell of
support that they got it, and then all the rallies that they
held. Shinde has been countering those
rallies, but Shinde has been spent.
Building government money and other things to get the people
to his events, whereas Uddha has been getting spontaneous
responses. So that has created a bit of a
problem for the BJP that Shinde is not getting the kind of vote.
And the kind of support that they were expecting and Udha
Udha has not collapsed. The BJP, I'm told, had internal
surveys which told them that Shinde was actually pulling them
down. If you remember, Chandrakant
Bhawan Kuli, who's the state BJP president, made a statement
saying that, you know, at the next elections, you know, Shinde
will contest 20 seats and we will contest 200 and 200 and
whatever, 40 seats or something like that.
You know, Shinde had got really mad and off late last week or 10
days back, you saw. Those advertisements that Shinde
took out Devendra Patna Fadnavis was nowhere.
There was Narendra Modi and there was Shinde.
So there has been trouble in their paradise for a very long
time and that is why they needed to get NCP on board.
And if you see Aditya Thakre's statement, he issued a statement
wherein he says that one of the Shinde men said that they had to
accept this entry of the NCP into the government because BJP
told them that they won't be able to win 145 seats if they do
not take the NCP on board. So what does that mean?
That means the BJP was certainly not winning without some kind of
a boost from somewhere else. So they are hoping that the NCP
will add to it. But you know, as the elections
come closer, as they're going for more surveys, they will
notice. Why has Sharad Pawa not been
swinging towards the BJP? Because like I said that the
their vote is a secular socialist vote.
It is not a saffron vote. So these guys who have who have
allied with the BJP, I think more than half of them will lose
their seats. Even Ajit will not find it easy.
He'll find it an uphill task. It will depend upon Pawar
whether Pawar still considers him his nephew and allows him to
win or whether or whether he brings him down.
It's not a cake walk for these guys in the NCP also.
So this entire thing is going to frequently change shape.
Two months before the Lok Sabha elections. 2 months before the
Vdansa by elections, you'll find a completely different picture
in Maharashtra. Today's episode was produced by
Jayaraj Singh and Anuja Singh. For a daily spotlight on people,
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