The rise of the Maratha dynasty

MUMBAI: SharadChandra Govindrao Pawar on Monday laid all succession issues to rest. By fielding his daughter Supriya Sule for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha election, the Maratha strongman not only ensured the succession of his dynasty, but showed that he is capable of doing the very things that he has accused others of doing.

Supriya Sule will be the Congress-NCP candidate for the September 18 Rajya Sabha election. The election was caused by the death of NCP’s Vasant Chavan. Though his widow was interested in filling the vacancy, the party opted for the Pawar princess overlooking the late leader’s widow Neelima Chavan.

The decision about Ms Sule’s candidature was announced by Union aviation minister Praful Patel, who presided over the party’s executive meet. Like every other leader of every other party does, Mr Pawar and his coterie too held the pressure from “party workers” responsible for “forcing Supriya to contest”.

“It was not Mr Pawar who wanted Supriya to get the ticket. But the party that was insisting about her candidature,” Mr Patel claimed.

This reopens debate about the Sharad Pawar style of politics which would leave even the most cynical critic frothing in anger. The former Congressman-turned-founder of the NCP has been accused of betraying many in the past to climb up the political ladder.

The first signs of his politics were visible in the 1970s. Mr Pawar then publicly supported Vasantdada Patil only to pull rug under his feat to become the youngest CM in ‘78. By then he had quit the Congress and had his Progressive Democratic Front formed. Having faced a rout in the following election, Mr Pawar knocked Rajiv Gandhi’s door seeking re-entry into the Congress.

Even while he was admitted into the Congress, Mr Pawar was busy drawing up his own strategies irrespective of the party’s interests. Late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi got wary of him when Mr Pawar engineered defeat of the party’s nominee Ram Pradhan in Rajya Sabha election in mid-eighties.

Rajiv Gandhi’s death exposed another perspective of his political persona. Though he was the first to request Sonia Gandhi to take a plunge in active politics to save Congress, he took exactly opposite position once she took charge of the party.

The Maratha strongman raised revolt against “Italian-born” Sonia Gandhi criticising the Congress’s “dynastic politics”. He floated his own outfit Nationalist Congress Party ahead of ‘99 elections and fought Congress with a vengeance.

However, soon after the elections, he wasted no time in forming an alliance with the party he fought against. At the national level, Mr Pawar continued to oppose the Congress even though his party was sharing power with it in Maharashtra.

His masterstroke though was yet to come. Ahead of ‘04 election, the NCP leader flirted with BJP-Shiv Sena for some kind of an arrangement but could not do so and turned back to the Congress — readily accepting Italy-born Sonia Gandhi as the leader and parting ways with his comrade PA Sangma on the issue.

Having claimed his pound of flesh in Manmohan Singh’s government, Mr Pawar started singing praise for the Nehru-Gandhi family — including Sonia’s contribution to Indian politics.

And now comes the candidature of his daughter. Forgetting that he was a harsh critic of dynastic politics not-so-long ago, Mr Pawar is set to create one himself. It is not for nothing that the three-time Maharashtra CM and former defence minister is called the Master Manipulator.