In Maharashtra: A Pawar struggle to claim heavyweight Congress leader YB Chavan’s legacy

YB Chavan was a stalwart Congress leader known for his progressive politics. His legacy is the latest issue in the ongoing tug-of-war between two NCP factions.

The political legacy of Maharashtra’s first Chief Minister, Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan, one of the tallest politicians from the state, is the latest contention, in the ongoing tug-of-war between the two Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions.

After his nephew’s rebellion and the party split, the senior Pawar started his political ‘yatra’ to rebuild the party, after bowing down to Chavan’s memorial in Karad, Satara. (HT PHOTO)

Last week, after completing 100 days in the Shinde-Fadnavis government, Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, released an open letter to the people of Maharashtra, proclaiming himself as the president of the NCP. Skipping any mention of his uncle and mentor, Sharad Pawar, Ajit claimed his ‘source of inspiration’ in politics was Chavan.

The letter avowed that his party going forward would work in the footsteps of Chavan’s politics, which was development-oriented and ingrained in empowering Bahujans (backward classes, Dalits, minorities).

Chavan, a stalwart Congress leader known for his progressive politics, also served as defence, home, external affairs and finance minister in various Congress governments including the ones led by Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi at the Centre. He introduced and groomed Sharad Pawar in politics, giving the latter his first party ticket to contest state legislature polls in 1967, at the age of 27. Pawar has steadfastly acknowledged Chavan as his political mentor.

Recently after his nephew’s rebellion and the party split, the senior Pawar started his political ‘yatra’ to rebuild the party, after bowing down to Chavan’s memorial in Karad, Satara.

Until now, Ajit’s NCP faction had claimed that despite the split, Pawar continues to be their mentor. So, why did Ajit choose to publicly claim the political legacy of Chavan?

An obvious answer lies in the ongoing feud for NCP’s leadership that has now reached the Election Commission.

“By claiming Chavan’s legacy, Ajit Pawar is claiming the legacy of the NCP party itself. It is a bid to legitimise himself and his faction. But, it’s not a convincing claim. For starters, this is recent history; everyone knows that Pawar’s political career had a visible influence on Chavan and the latter had even named him as his political successor,’’ said Mrudul Nile, professor in the department of politics and civics at Mumbai University.

Secondly, Nile added that Chavan’s Nehruvian brand of politics was quite dissimilar to Ajit Pawar’s politics in recent times and this was all the more pronounced given his decision to join the BJP government.

Prakash Bal, a senior journalist and political analyst, similarly said that while Sharad Pawar was moulded in Chavan’s brand of Congress politics, the latter’s influence was never visible in the next generation of NCP leadership or cadre. “If Ajit was truly inspired by Chavan, he would not have joined the BJP government,’’ he added.

Chavan died in 1984 while the NCP was formed by Pawar in 1999 along with his supporters, over the issue of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins. From 1999 to 2014, the NCP in alliance with the Congress, ruled the state government. The party’s strength came from Pawar mentoring a second rung of leaders, including many regional political satraps, who got their power from controlling sugar co-operatives and educational institutions. Ahead of the 2019 polls, many of them left the NCP to join the BJP.

A more telling reason behind Ajit’s statement comes from his cousin Supriya Sule’s remarks at a recent gathering of her party’s women cadre, at the YB Chavan centre in Mumbai. In a taunt to the BJP and her cousin Ajit, without naming him, Sule said, “You cannot win votes using Hedgewar (founder of the RSS), you need to use Chavan’s name for that.’’

Since 1999, Maharashtra’s political space has been shared by four parties – Congress, NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena. Even with the Modi wave in 2014 and 2019, the deflated Congress and NCP have not completely lost their space in the state. There is a distinct NCP vote bank in the state that looks up to senior Pawar in Maharashtra. The 2019 polls, in fact, saw a resurgence of Pawar, who led a weakened NCP (after several leaders were poached by the BJP) to win 54 seats. Even post-rebellion, while the majority of NCP MLAs are with Ajit, the same cannot be said of the party cadre.

“If Ajit has to claim and retain a chunk of the NCP vote bank and party cadre, he needs to maintain a distinct identity that is separate from the BJP. By claiming Chavan’s legacy, Ajit has signalled that his political ideology is not right-wing and he will not merge his identity with the BJP,’’ said political analyst Abhay Deshpande. Deshpande added that even within the NCP party cadres who admire Ajit’s leadership, there is uneasiness about aligning with the BJP-Shinde government, given that in Modi-Shah’s BJP, regional allies often lose their identity and ideology.

Ajit’s reference to Chavan’s Bahujan empowerment through development is also a continuation of the long and dominating tradition in Maharashtra politics. As Nile points out, while political power in Maharashtra has been dominated by Marathas, it has since the initial Congress days have been practised in the name of the Bahujans. While just a few have delivered on this promise, for many others it has been more lip service than any real empowerment.

With caste becoming a severely fraught issue in Maharashtra - renewed protests for Maratha reservation, OBCs protesting against Maratha reservation within their category, shepherds (dhangars) community intensifying demand for Scheduled Tribes status – political parties across the divide will have to carry out a balancing act to appease all the castes crucial in the upcoming polls.

It remains in Ajit’s political interest to retain his party’s identity as secular, development-oriented and progressive, similar to that practised by the doyen of state politics, Chavan.

It remains to be seen if voters and NCP followers believe him.