Opinion Nephew,uncle and a state

That Ajit Pawar has of late wanted to chart his own route was not a secret. Unlike his uncle,the younger Pawar has only a one-point agenda: to control the state. While the senior Pawar is known for his cucumber-cool politics,his nephew is the angry young man in a hurry. Sharad Pawar has always had wide-angle vision; Ajit Pawar is happy having a narrow focus. The senior Pawar,at least in his initial days,was always careful and selective in choosing the people around him; the company kept by Pawar junior borders on the reckless.

That,precisely,is the reason the younger Pawar has found himself caught in a web of alleged corruption issues while still in his early days. The desperate situation he found himself in demanded an equally desperate measure. Hence the resignation.

Ajit Pawar’s unexpected move has hit two targets. The first target is Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan,whose obsession for political hygiene has supposedly affected Ajit and company’s machinations badly. The second is his uncle Sharad Pawar who he suspects is treating the Congress CM Chavan with kid gloves. Ajit Pawar’s camp believes that Pawar senior was doing very little to rein Chavan in.

This resulted in Ajit Pawar being politically isolated in the state. As the NCP head in the state legislative assembly and as finance minister,his main objective was always to protect and encourage the state’s politically strong co-operative lobby. The political empire of the Pawars was built on a strong foundation of rich co-operative bodies run by Maratha musclemen who,in turn,are loyal to the NCP. The Congress’s and NCP’s success lies in giving these co-operative barons a free hand. In Prithviraj Chavan,the Pawar clan found the first formidable challenger who wants to contain,if not demolish,the co-operative barons. Chavan is the rare politician in Maharashtra who doesn’t have a co-operative body to back. Having been given the reins of the state,Chavan slowly but surely started cornering the Pawars.

First it was Lavasa,a controversial project near Pune that the Pawars are believed to have a stake in. Then came the dissolution of the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank board. The MSCB,an apex body that funds all co-operative institutions in the state,has more than 30 district co-operative banks under it with nearly Rs 1 lakh crore in its cash reserves. MSCB has been a Pawar fiefdom,run by Ajit Pawar’s associates in the recent past. It is in bad shape,reportedly thanks to large amounts of loans sanctioned to co-operative bodies run by NCP men. CM Chavan is said to have moved the Reserve Bank of India to dissolve the bank’s board,which was full of Ajit Pawar loyalists.

This first blow rattled the NCP,which forced the senior Pawar to intervene. Always wary of Sharad Pawar,the Congress’s central leadership is rumoured to have advised Chavan to go slow on the senior Pawar. At this time,the going was tough for the Congress in Delhi. Antagonising the NCP would have been the last thing the Congress wanted. The political grapevine is that Chavan,meanwhile,successfully built bridges with Sharad Pawar,who apparently wasn’t exactly happy with the growing clout of more aggressive elements within the NCP who were loyal to his nephew. The feeling that Pawar senior was closer to the Congress CM added to the unease in the Ajit Pawar camp. The Ajit Pawar camp had every reason to believe that Sharad Pawar was cosy with Chavan. It was around this time that stories on how a couple of politicians had allegedly swindled crores of rupees in various projects undertaken by the state’s irrigation ministry started appearing. It can be no coincidence that the irrigation ministry was first headed by Ajit Pawar himself and then by Sunil Tatkare,Pawar junior’s right-hand man.

At this point,Ajit Pawar wanted his uncle to take a firm stand against the CM. Pawar senior,however,didn’t appear to be doing so,for reasons best known to him. Having played the resignation game a few weeks back at the Central level,Sharad Pawar appeared to be in no mood to rock the UPA boat again. Besides,Sharad Pawar,being a senior minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet,also has to keep Delhi in mind before taking any action in haste,which is not the case for Ajit Pawar.

Left to defend himself against a persistent chief minister and an unresponsive uncle,Ajit Pawar took the extreme step of quitting the government. The resignation might have signalled his coming of age in state politics; it may well also be the beginning of the end of the Sharad Pawar era. The tide appears to be turning against the original Maratha strongman.

The writer is executive editor,‘Loksatta’

girish.kuber@expressindia.com