Explained: How Sharad Pawar reawakened NCP among people of Maharashtra

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the MP from the Madha Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra’s Solapur district, Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, announced that should his leader — Sharad Pawar — decide to contest the Lok Sabha elections, he would step aside from the race and leave the seat for Pawar.

Pawar mulled over the idea publicly. But when the names were announced, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) fielded Solapur Zilla Parishad President Sanjay Shinde as the candidate. “Pawar held discussions with us,” disclosed a top Congress leader “and he was possibly not sure of winning the seat so he decided not to contest. Just imagine what would have happened if he had lost — the best-known figure, almost a legend in Maharashtra losing a Lok Sabha seat !” he added.

Maybe that was the early warning bell that set it all off. Since then, Pawar has been working relentlessly in Maharashtra picking up the pieces of his party and trying to put them all together.

It hasn’t been easy. Pawar lost his temper when a reporter asked him, during the campaign, why his ‘caste brothers’ were abandoning him and walking out of the NCP into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “You can ask me about politics,” he hissed. “Why bring family into it? You lack the manners to be a reporter,” he said to the hapless questioner.

But the fact is, it cut very close to the bone. By the time the election was underway almost a dozen top NCP leaders had jumped ship to the BJP. This only strengthened Pawar’s resolve to fight back. He called in every IOU and spent every waking hour either campaigning or discussing strategy with lieutenants. The only aim was defeating the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, prompting BJP President Amit Shah to chortle that every Opposition leader was in the queue to join the BJP: barring Pawar and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.

Pawar’s opposition to the BJP was not always visceral. Though the Congress and the NCP fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections together, he announced the NCP’s unconditional support to the BJP after the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly elections when it seemed the Sena was dithering about supporting the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly confessed his admiration for Pawar. “I have personal respect for Sharadrao. I was Gujarat Chief Minister... He helped me walk by holding my finger. I feel proud to pronounce this publicly,” he said at a public meeting some years ago.

But the political became the personal when the Enforcement Directorate (ED), ahead of the Maharashtra election, linked Pawar’s name with the collapse of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank. This strengthened Pawar’s resolve to fight the personal politically.

It is hard to assess Pawar’s ‘vote share’ in the conventional sense of the term. He has countless admirers and supporters cutting across parties. His greatest asset is he never uses rhetoric, flowery speeches or bombast in his appeal for votes. He is — mostly — factual and harks back to his work. He’s never shy of conceding and recognising the expertise of others (when he was Defence Minister and chief of Army Staff, Gen S F Rodrigues, landed him in hot water by referring to MPs as ‘bandicoots’, it was to Opposition BJP MP Jaswant Singh that Pawar turned, to help draft a letter of apology which he later read out in Parliament). On the other hand, it is hard to see what the NCP stands for — minus Pawar. Or, what the NCP really is.

But if it was Modi who has won elections for the BJP, it is Pawar who won the election for the NCP. Eyewitnesses say the turning point was the Satara rally. Thousands of party workers had tears in their eyes seeing the ailing 79-year-old leader address them, undeterred by heavy rain, refusing an umbrella: “How can I take shelter under an umbrella when all of you are fighting the rain”. The result was, those who left Pawar to seek greener pastures were defeated as Pawar reawakened the NCP in the people of Maharashtra.