Senior politician, socialist thinker and senior Congress leader Ratnakar Mahajan passed away in Pune early on Saturday, bringing to an end a long political career that spanned the Emergency, the Janata movement, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The final rites on Mahajan, 80, who breathed his last late on Friday, were performed at Vaikunth crematorium on Saturday afternoon, his family members said.
Mahajan, who was imprisoned during the Emergency, was among Maharashtra’s prominent socialist voices and remained active in public life for decades. He had also served as executive chairman of the Maharashtra State Planning Board and later held important organisational esponsibilities in the Congress, including as a senior spokesperson and vice-president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).
One of the important episodes of his political career came in 2010, when Mahajan, then a senior NCP leader, suggested by writing a letter that the Sharad Pawar-led party should merge with the Congress.
In an open letter to Pawar, Mahajan argued that the circumstances that had led to the formation of the NCP in 1999 no longer existed and questioned the rationale for maintaining two separate parties when the Congress and NCP had been jointly running the Maharashtra government.
The suggestion triggered strong reactions within the NCP and eventually led to Mahajan’s resignation from the party. He said at the time that he had proposed a merger because the Congress had led the freedom struggle and that the reason for the NCP’s creation was no longer relevant. He also maintained that there was no ideological difference between the two parties to justify their continued separation.
{{/usCountry}}The suggestion triggered strong reactions within the NCP and eventually led to Mahajan’s resignation from the party. He said at the time that he had proposed a merger because the Congress had led the freedom struggle and that the reason for the NCP’s creation was no longer relevant. He also maintained that there was no ideological difference between the two parties to justify their continued separation.
{{/usCountry}}Mahajan’s political journey had itself reflected the changing currents of Maharashtra politics. A socialist leader, he had joined the Congress from the Janata Dal fold in the early 1990s along with Babanrao Pachpute. He left the Congress in 1999 and remained with the Pawar-led NCP for over a decade before his differences over the proposed merger prompted his exit.
His resignation from the NCP eventually marked his return to the Congress, where he once again emerged as a prominent voice of the party in Maharashtra and served as its senior spokesperson and vice-president.
NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar paid tribute to Mahajan and expressed condolences to his family.
“The news of the passing of Congress’s senior leader, spokesperson and pragmatic thinker Dr Ratnakar Mahajan is extremely heartbreaking. Today, I paid my respects to his mortal remains and expressed my condolences to the family,” Pawar said.
Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Harshwardhan Sapkal said Mahajan’s death was a major loss to the state’s public and political life.
“The profundity of his thoughts, his commitment to society and his ideological guidance will forever remain inspiring. His demise has caused a great loss to Maharashtra’s social, political and ideological spheres,” Sapkal said.