Pune: At 8 am sharp on Monday, exactly a day after his nephew Ajit Pawar defected along with several top leaders and a section of the party’s MLAs, Sharad Pawar set out from his home in Pune to resurrect his tattered party.
The 82-year-old leader was headed to Karad in Satara to pay his respects at the memorial of his political mentor YB Chavan on the occasion of Guru Purnima. He was accompanied by his wife Pratibha Pawar, grand-nephew Rohit Pawar and several party workers. Throughout the 162-kilometre-long journey, he stopped the convoy at various places where people had gathered ins small groups to meet him and extend their support.
At Karad, a larger gathering awaited him. Supporters who had congregated from Satara, Sangli, and Kolhapur waited in the rain to welcome him along with Satara MP Shriniwas Patil, NCP’s Rajya Sabha MP Vandana Chavan, and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan, who hails from Karad. But the surprise of the morning was the presence of NCP MLA from Wai Makarand Patil who was spotted the previous day in the company of Ajit Pawar. Patil later clarified that he had decided to stick with Sharad Pawar. At least 17 other NCP MLAs out of the 53 who were elected in 2019 are still sitting on the fence and watching Pawar senior’s moves, as will the 24 others who have gone with Ajit Pawar. Sources close to Sharad Pawar said, the leader had decided to hold a series of rallies across the constituencies of these rebel MLAs. The first such public meeting is likely to be at Ambegaon in Pune district, represented by Pawar’s protégé-turned-rebel Dilip Walse Patil.
He was also careful not to be harsh in his criticism of the rebels indicating room for rapprochement in a situation that is still fluid. “Even though there have been some people (in the party) gone a different way, I am personally not the kind of person who harbours malice towards people,” he said. Pawar also reiterated that he and his party were confident of bouncing back from Sunday’s setback. “I have seen off such challenges in the past too, I know how to handle them. The best way is to go among people and to seek their support.” At one point when he was asked whether he had been pained by the defections, he responded crisply, “Certainly not.”
{{/usCountry}}He was also careful not to be harsh in his criticism of the rebels indicating room for rapprochement in a situation that is still fluid. “Even though there have been some people (in the party) gone a different way, I am personally not the kind of person who harbours malice towards people,” he said. Pawar also reiterated that he and his party were confident of bouncing back from Sunday’s setback. “I have seen off such challenges in the past too, I know how to handle them. The best way is to go among people and to seek their support.” At one point when he was asked whether he had been pained by the defections, he responded crisply, “Certainly not.”
{{/usCountry}}“I have set out on a tour of the state to galvanize the cadre, they need not feel disillusioned with what some leaders have done,” he added. “A wrong kind of tendency” was rearing its head in the state of breaking up opposition parties and he said, he would oppose that, as he would growing communalism.
“My fight against communal forces begins today and to fight those forces, I will rebuild the party,” he told reporters in Karad. The only time he was short was when he was asked whether Ajit Pawar’s rebellion had his covert blessing. “That’s a mean thing to say. Only those with mean and low intellect can say this.”
Though he announced the sackings of rebels Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare from party positions, Pawar said the decision to initiate petition for disqualification the 9 rebels had been by state unit chief Jayant Patil.
In his address to party workers at Karad, he said, “Some of our people have fallen prey to the BJP’s tactics to break other parties.” This, he said had happened in other states too, mentioning the fall of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh.
At Karad, Pawar was welcomed by former Maharashtra chief minister and Congress leader Prithiviraj Chavan. Though, he has often baited Pawar in the past, Chavan said: “The Congress party stands with Sharad Pawar, he is a leader of the MVA, and together we will fight the BJP.”
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