Sharad Pawar on the prowl, BJP beware!

Is the BJP up to the challenge of picking up Sharad Pawar’s dindi gauntle?

When Sharad Pawar decides to hit the roads, governments must beware. It could be a precursor of bigger — and unsavoury — things in offing for the ruling dispensation.

Pawar seems to have made up his mind that an alliance with the Congress again might be more beneficial to his party than with the BJP.

The Congress has been on a roll for the past three-four months, and not just since their newly installed party president Rahul Gandhi’s make-over. The recently concluded elections in Gujarat have clearly established while there is still a lot of bounce left in the BJP, the Congress might yet prove to be the proverbial tortoise, gaining on the ruling party from behind. That has already begun to show in Maharashtra and Pawar, the classic fence sitter unless pushed to the wall, is showing signs of relenting towards an ally the NCP had kicked out of the reckoning during the 2014 assembly elections.

There has been a lift in the spirits of the Congress ever since it won an astounding 73 out of 81 seats in the Nanded Municipal Corporation in September this year. It has since been winning quite a few other civic elections, and not just in Maharashtra, to be topped up by the Gujarat polls wherein together with its allies it was only nine seats short of the halfway mark in that assembly. Pawar is nothing if not a weather being; so, much before the results were out, he made a subtle slide towards the Congress and his joining the hallabol and Jan Akrosh Yatra begun soon after the Nanded results is both a telling commentary and a warning to the current dispensation.

The situation is pretty much the same a decade later. Though much water has flowed under the bridge since then, Pawar cannot be unaware of the fact that farmers committing suicide are leaving behind personal notes to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis blaming his government for its inability to offer them minimum support prices and the messing up of their loan waivers. Perhaps that, and the fact that at least one party MP (Nana Patole) and one ally (Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana) have quit on the grounds of the BJP’s lack of understanding or concern for farmers’ problems, is enough writing on the wall which at least Pawar seems to be reading correctly.

It is remarkable, however, that at the age of 77 Pawar should be undertaking a similar punishing journey to the one that he had 37 years ago. One of the fallouts of that dindi, which was a declaration of war on government, was the eventual exit of Antulay as chief minister though it did not necessarily mean that Pawar and his then splinter party, the Congress (S), were restored to power in the state. Pawar had to merge his Congress (S) with the Congress (I) a few years later to reclaim the state. Nor do I think he will merge his NCP with the Congress now but the writing on the wall clearly says that the NCP needs the support of the Congress to regain its foothold in the state. Moreover, with the BJP’s diminishing credit among the rural and agrarian community, Fadnavis cannot be unaware of the consequences of the recreation of the 1980 dindi march, albeit with more modern means and technological tools.

Although the Congress flatly turned down the NCP’s request for an alliance in both the Brihanmunbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections and the recently concluded one in Gujarat, Pawar seems to have made up his mind that an alliance with the Congress again might be more beneficial to his party than one with the BJP. He had once told me that the Congress starts with a 20% support base of Dalits and Muslims and he has then to work hard only to turn about half the farmers over to their side and the saffron parties then stand no chance. That is what he is working towards again.

Is the BJP up to the challenge of picking up his gauntle?