Maharashtra’s influential Pawar clan, and a power struggle within

The political dynasty of the Pawars with its roots in Baramati, an industrial town in the east of Pune district, is as old as Maharashtra.

In a break from tradition, this year party leaders decided to dial down the celebrations around Supriya Sule’s 54th birthday on June 30 as well her elevation to the role of the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) working president on June 10.

Sharad Pawar (seated centre) is flanked by his wife Pratibha and Ajit Pawar. Standing, from left: Pawar’s grandnephew and MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed Rohit Pawar; Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule; her children Revati and Vijay with an unidentified cousin; and extreme right is Supriya’s husband Sadanand Sule. (BY ARRANGEMENT)

Supporters of her father, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, were all set for the customary pomp and show; but an executive from the ad agency that party leaders work with for print ads and hoardings said, “They did not do it for fear of unsettling her cousin Ajit Pawar.”

The altered dynamics between members of Maharashtra’s most influential political family – the Pawar clan – has been evident for over a decade, and Ajit Pawar dealt the final blow as he exited the party with at least 32 MLAs to join the Eknath Shinde-led government on Sunday.

Ajit’s desire to lead the party was no secret – it was evident when he supported Sharad Pawar’s resignation recently, and the senior Pawar’s move to go back on his decision impacted personal equations further. The formers outburst on Wednesday, when he pointed to his uncle’s age and asked when he (Sharad Pawar) would retire, stemmed from that.

The Pawars of Baramati

The political dynasty of the Pawars with its roots in Baramati, an industrial town in the east of Pune district, is as old as Maharashtra. Like the Chavans of Nanded, Naiks of Pusad (Yavatmal) and Thackerays of Mumbai, the Pawars enjoyed their sway on the state – sometimes even when not in power.

The early Pawars were an agrarian lot, helmed by Govindrao (Aba) and Shardabai Pawar who raised 11 children. They were to later influence the social, economic and political landscape of the state in many ways. Sharad, their eighth offspring, joined politics while their eldest son Vasantrao was a lawyer-turned-politician.

Suryakant manages small-time construction projects while Pratap heads the Sakal media group, among others. Apart from Vasantrao, three other siblings – Dinakarrao, Anantrao (Ajit’s father) and Madhavrao – are deceased. Sharad Pawar’s sisters – Sarla (Sunita) Jagtap, Saroj Patil, Meena Jagdhane and Neela Sasane have largely stayed away from politics, although Saroj’s husband late ND Patil was associated with Peasants and Workers Party and was considered a towering figure in the Left movement.

The rise of Sharad Pawar

As a member of Pune City Youth Congress, Sharad Pawar began his political career in 1958, two years before a united Maharashtra took shape. By 1962, he became the Pune district Youth Congress president, and five years later, stepped into electoral politics, winning the assembly polls from Baramati in 1967. Since then, he has been a member of either the state legislature or Parliament.

At the beginning of his career, Pawar faced a predicament when bypolls were announced in Baramati after the demise of then Congress leader Keshavrao Jedhe – at the time the Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti chose to field his older brother Vasantrao. The Congress, on the other hand, nominated Jedhe’s son Gulabrao and asked Sharad Pawar to campaign for him.

“Everyone in the family was keenly watching my stand. The Congress, of which I was a part, had made the contest prestigious. However, thanks to our mother, the family exhibited maturity and my elder brother (Vasantrao) accepted my stand of working for a Congress candidate,” recounted Sharad Pawar in his autobiography Lok Maze Sangati (the people are my companions), the second part of which was unveiled in May this year.

In his career of more than six decades, Sharad Pawar, who will turn 83 on December 12, has often displayed the flexibility shown by his brother. Pawar has served as chief minister of Maharashtra four times – 1978 to 1980, 1988 to 1990, 1990 to 91 and 1993 to 1995 – and was a Union minister three times and leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. As Union minister, he handled key portfolios such as defence and agriculture. At the same time, he transformed the fortunes of Baramati, which he eventually turned into a political fortress.

The clan seemed intact until 2005-06 – that’s when the NCP supremo started looking upon his daughter Supriya Sule as his heir apparent. Supriya, married to industrialist Sadanand Sule and a mother of two, espoused women’s causes by promoting self-help groups, as she stepped into politics in 2006, and was elected to Rajya Sabha.

Warring cousins

Looking back at the time, political observers said they sensed the early cracks in the family with this development. Ajit Pawar didn’t miss the writing on the wall – the entry of the patriarch’s daughter into politics implied that the senior Pawar was unlikely to look to him while handing over the reins of the party.

Her three-year stint in the Rajya Sabha gave Sule the advantage of connecting with the masses as well as networking in Delhi, which would propel her towards bigger opportunities. Eventually, by selecting the Baramati constituency to contest her first Lok Sabha polls in 2009, Sule – and her father – preferred not to take any risk. Represented by her father more than eight times, Baramati was a safe seat.

It was only by 2019, when Sule’s winning streak continued, that her father envisaged a bigger role for her considering his age and the urgency for him to handover the mantle. “It pushed nephew Ajit Pawar towards political harakiri by breaking the ranks with party,” said senior journalist Satyajit Joshi.

Pawar’s associate for more than five decades and his classmate, Vitthal Maniyar, however, is confident that no action by any member of the family, including Ajit’s latest rebellion will affect their relations. “No matter which way their politics will go, Pawars as a family will always stick together,” said Maniyar, who was among the first to reach Pawar’s residence on Sunday when Ajit exited the party.

On his part, Sharad Pawar tried to keep friction at bay. As a strategy, he cautiously groomed Sule as a national player keeping her away from state affairs which was under Ajit’s control. This did not quell speculation of differences brewing within. However, each time these talks were put on the table, the senior Pawar had a stock response: “Ajit, I know, is keen in state politics and cooperative institutions. Supriya, however, is more inclined towards national and international affairs.”

The cousins have different personas – Ajit is more the son of the soil, with a strong grip over administration, and is more politically ambitious than Sule.

The bonhomie between members of the clan is on display every year during Diwali when most members gather at Govindbaug, Pawar’s residence in Baramati. After a get-together on Padwa (second day of Diwali) the family meets locals, who turn out in large numbers to wish them. For the first time, in 2021, Ajit Pawar was conspicuous by his absence at the festivities. His uncle explained that some of Ajit’s personal staff had contracted the Covid virus.

Ajit, who will turn 64 on July 22, joined politics in 1982 and soon won a local body election; 13 years later, in 1995, he joined the state assembly after being groomed by his uncle. After his father Anantrao, who used to work for filmmaker V Shantaram’s Rajkamal Studios in Mumbai, died, Sharad Pawar took Ajit under his wings and steered his course in politics, said Maniyar.

He has had his share of controversies in a career spanning over three-and-a-half decades. In 2013, he had to publicly apologise for his controversial remarks of about urinating in dams when it was pointed out to him that some had no water, and a year before that, he resigned after a row over clearing various irrigation related projects. All through this, his uncle shielded him and ensured he got his due in the party.

Ajit, married to Sunetra Pawar, the daughter of Padamsinh Bajirao Patil, a former state minister, was working under his uncle’s shadow till around a decade ago. He first flexed his muscles in 2010 when he thwarted his uncle’s plan to make the party’s heavyweight Chhagan Bhujbal the deputy CM. Bhujpal, ironically, has now joined him.

The other Pawars

In 2017, when Rohit Pawar, another scion of the family, entered politics, cracks began to widen between Ajit and Sharad Pawar. The 37-year-old grandson of NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s older brother Appasaheb and a member of the family’s fourth generation, Rohit is currently a legislator from Karjat Jamkhed assembly constituency in Ahmednagar district.

Rohit, who first contested the zila parishad elections six years ago, from a constituency near Baramati, was handpicked by Pawar senior for a bigger position, thereby creating a deeper cleave with Ajit .

After Ajit’s recent mutiny, Rohit was seen by Sharad Pawar’s side at the latter’s Modibaug residence in Pune, and accompanied him to Karad the following day. Neither Ajit nor Rohit have spoken ill of the other.

“I will always respect Ajit dada – he has groomed me personally as well as politically, teaching me how to interact with people. However, Sharad Pawar has been my mentor who introduced me to politics. So, I will always be with him,” said Rohit, who is always turned out in a white shirt and blue jeans. The Mumbai-educated politician is a good orator and comfortable dealing with the cadre from rural areas.

Two years after Rohit stepped into politics, Ajit tried to induct his own son Parth into politics in 2019. The SoBo-raised and London-educated Parth was parachuted directly into the electoral battleground of Maval, an industrial and farming region in Pune district. To accommodate the 33-year-old in Lok Sabha polls, his granduncle had to excuse himself from another run. “There are already two members of my family contesting polls this time,” Pawar senior had said while announcing his exit from the Lok Sabha race.

The plan backfired as the urbane Parth, who was more comfortable speaking in English than his mother tongue, was widely trolled for electioneering in halting Marathi. He eventually went on to earn the dubious distinction of being the only Pawar – among granduncle Sharad, father Ajit, aunt Supriya Sule, and cousin Rohit – to have lost an election.

The loss also underscored that other than their powerful surname and political legacy, members of the Pawar family have little in common.

In November 2019, Ajit attempted an unsuccessful coup by forming a government with BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, but was outsmarted by his uncle. It was only in the last month that the mystery about many elements of the coup was unravelled.

For the first time on June 29, Pawar senior accepted that he had he met Devendra Fadnavis and discussed government formation that year, and that he had changed his stance and “bowled a googly” a few days before the controversial oath-taking ceremony on November 23, 2019. Pawar’s remarks came a day after Fadnavis claimed that the idea of an alliance in 2019 began with discussions with the NCP chief who played a “double game”. Fadnavis responded to Pawar’s remarks saying, if the NCP chief feels it was his googly, “it has only bowled his nephew, Ajit Pawar”.

It was now up to Ajit to reveal himself – according to him, there were five meetings held at an industrialist’s residence where discussions to form a government with BJP were held.

“If the same Shiv Sena was communal in 2014, how did it become acceptable in 2019,” Ajit said, questyioning his uncle’s stand to ally with the Shiv Sena and form the MVA, in a speech on Wednesday.

But the split in the Sena caused that government to fall last year.

And a year later, a similar split may well have cleaved the first family of Maharashtra politics.