How Sharad Pawar staged (yet another) comeback by cultivating leaders

In addition to Jayant Patil, Jitendra Awhad, Anil Deshmukh, Amol Kolhe and Rohit Pawar, he now has some new talent in the NCP ranks

For long, Sharad Pawar was regarded as a politician capable of doing anything in the political arena. Since June last year, as nephew Ajit walked away with most of his MLAs along with the NCP name and symbol, it was being said that the veteran politician won’t be able to regain lost ground. After all, he was up against someone who was handling his party organisation on ground for over a decade. It was also being pointed out that he did not have enough leaders to run the party as most of his frontline and second-rung leaders had joined the rebel faction.

NCP-SCP Chief Sharad Pawar addresses a public meeting. (ANI file)

However, it seems the seasoned warlord had been underestimated. His faction of NCP won eight seats – the party’s highest since he formed NCP in 1998.

This election also saw him cultivating a new batch of young leaders. In addition to Jayant Patil, Jitendra Awhad, Anil Deshmukh, Amol Kolhe and Rohit Pawar, he now has some new leaders.

Nilesh Lanke, 44, has grabbed attention after defeating the mighty Vikhes-Patils in Ahmednagar. Bhaskar Bhagare who won from Dindori by defeating former union minister Bharati Pawar, could emerge as a leader in north Maharashtra. In Amar Kale, 51, who won from Wardha, Pawar has a new leader in Vidarbha from the Kunbi community. Dhairyasheel, 47, kin of Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, who was Pawar’s long-time ally, could emerge as a leader in western Maharashtra.

Bajrang Sonwane, 53, who defeated Pankaja Munde, could become a Maratha face from Marathwada region where the community showed its electoral strength.

Young legislators such as Sandeep Kshirsagar and Prajakt Tanpure worked hard in this election. With at least half a dozen new leaders coming up, there is bound to be restlessness in the rival Ajit Pawar camp. There are already speculations about a couple of senior leaders from Ajit Pawar camp sending feelers to senior Pawar. It would be interesting to see how the nephew will counter the uncle now.

*Ajit irked over leads to Supriya, Kolhe in his assembly segments

Talking about Pawars, NCP insiders say Ajit Pawar is still irked with the result in Baramati and Shirur constituencies. A close aide says he had an inkling that Sunetra would lose but he had not anticipated that the margin would be so big. Both Supriya Sule and Amol Kolhe won by over 1.5 lakh votes. What irked Ajitdada the most was that the NCP (SP) candidates got leads in assembly segments represented by his MLAs and as well as MLAs from alliance partners. Sule got the lead over Sunetra Pawar in five segments while Kolhe led Shiv Sena candidate Shivajrao Adhalrao in all six segments under Shirur Lok Sabha constituency. The aide said Ajitdada could not do much about MLAs from alliance partners but took his own MLAs to task.

*The inevitability of surveys

Eknath Shinde and his party colleagues are blaming the surveys conducted by big brother BJP for losses in some constituencies. Ahead of the elections, BJP got a number of surveys done to gauge the mood of the people. Naturally, the surveys became the base for the party’s selection of candidates - not just its own but even of allies. It prevailed over Shinde to deny tickets to sitting MPs such as Krupal Tumane, Hemant Patil and Bhawana Gawli. Shinde faction lost those seats.

Such was the mood in the Shiv Sena that party chief spokesman Sanjay Shirsat went on record to say that surveys were the most dangerous part of what happened before elections and that their party has learnt a lesson.

The irony is, Shinde faction itself has been conducting surveys to find out what people say about its government.

*NCP’s dilemma over Malik

Ajit Pawar led NCP is still not sure about what to do with Nawab Malik, the MLA who is facing investigation in connection with allegations that he benefited in a property transaction facilitated by a Dawood Ibrahim aide.

In the winter session, BJP objected to Malik sitting on treasury benches with NCP MLAs - after all, it was BJP which had wanted him out of the cabinet of the earlier MVA government after his arrest. Malik then returned to Mumbai citing health reasons and chose not to attend any party functions. Significantly, Malik did not attend the review meeting of Ajit Pawar led NCP after the rout in Lok Sabha elections.

*Ambedkar’ anguish

Prakash Ambedkar led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi got routed in the Lok Sabha elections. Its vote share came down from 6.98% in 2019 to 3.67%. Barring one or two constituencies, it could not affect the calculations of the MVA. It seems that Ambedkar failed to read the mood of the voters, especially Dalit voters that his party has influence on. After the results, Ambedkar expressed his anguish in a post on social media. “How many times will the Bahujan voters get fooled by them?” he asked, accusing opposition parties of using the socially backward communities only to win elections.