Some people have crossed all limits, says Pawar

MUMBAI: “You need to be humble after coming to power and sensible in making the policies. People do not like misuse of power and personal attack on the opposition leaders. Some people have crossed all the limits,” remarked Sharad Pawar, chief of the Nationalist Congress Party, without naming anyone, at a press conference on Thursday.

It was clear that he was pointing towards the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) top brass in Delhi and incumbent chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

“Some people have crossed the limits and I don’t want to go into details at this point of time,” he said.

When asked about the alleged links between senior NCP leader Praful Patel with Dawood Ibrahim, he claimed the same people had tried to do the same with him years ago. “You may not know, but the same people tried to do the same thing by linking my name with Dawood. But people know everything and don’t like leaders being targeted [for electoral gains]. Praful Patel’s life is clear for everyone to see,” Pawar said.

Patel had been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) last week in connection with a money laundering investigation related to the assets of the late Iqbal Mirchi, a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Patel had countered the ED charge at a press conference, where he insisted that there was no financial transaction or partnership between Mirchi’s wife Hajra Memon and his family.

The results available so far indicate that the NCP is leading in the race for around 53 to 55 seats in the Maharashtra assembly, which means the party has potentially succeeded in increasing its tally by 12 to 14 seats even in an adverse situation. The fightback has come in the backdrop of a mass exodus it faced of some senior leaders and sitting legislators in the run-up to the polls.

The party also won the bypoll for the Satara Lok Sabha seat that was necessitated by the defection of its sitting MP Udayanraje Bhonsle to the BJP. NCP candidate Shrinivas Patil registered a victory in Satara, defeating Bhonsle, who contested the seat on a BJP ticket.

And all the credit for NCP’s performance goes to none other than Pawar,78, who spared no effort to ensure that the NCP will spoil all the calculations of the BJP leadership that had been counting on winning 135+ seats or as close to the 145-seat majority mark in the 288-member state assembly. The BJP’s top leadership had given a call for ‘Ab Ki Baar 220 Paar’ for the BJP-Shiv

Sena combine, which can now be ruled out.

The last few months have been the most difficult times for the NCP since it was formed two decades ago, in 1999. The party was struggling as, within five years of losing power in the state, it lost many stalwarts considered Pawar loyalists. In addition, in the last three months, the party lost eight sitting MLAs out of its tally of 41 in the state assembly and one sitting Member of Parliament (Bhonsle).

Pawar took it in stride and the veteran of many political battles decided to lead from the front. He undertook a statewide tour before the assembly elections. The idea was to boost the morale of the party workers, which was at an all-time low due to the NCP’s reverses in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Simultaneously, he carefully selected candidates who were capable of wining their seats, says an NCP insider. He held 58 rallies as part of his election campaign across the state.

BJP tried to make it further difficult for Pawar after his name was dragged into a controversy involving Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank. The Enforcement Directorate(ED) booked him in a money laundering case. But Pawar turned it into an emotive issue. His decision to take on the ED and offer to visit the agency’s office conveyed the message to his cadre that the party leadership was determined to fight.

His spirited campaign, especially addressing a rally in Satara while it rained, created a buzz. Videos of the rally and his “rainsoaked speech” went viral and generated sympathy for the veteran leader not just in Satara but the entire western Maharashtra, which has been his stronghold. In its tally this election, more than half of the seats are coming from western Maharashtra.

For almost five decades, Pawar has been a prime factor in Maharashtra politics and a key leader in national politics. He began his political career with the Congress, became chief minister of Maharashtra three times and twice split the Congress to form his own political party. He made a bid for the prime minister’s post after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1991, but had to be content with the defence ministry before returning to Maharashtra as chief minister in 1993. Then he was India’s agriculture minister for a decade till the Congress-led coalition was voted out of power in 2014. This sums up Pawar’s political career but the Maharashtra politician’s influence goes beyond that. He has been directly or indirectly responsible for the formation or running of at least eight governments in the state since 1978.

Pawar began with the Congress but quit the party to form Maharashtra’s first non-Congress government. He floated his political party — the Congress (S) — in 1978. He remained a key figure among the opposition leaders during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as prime minister, but merged his party with the Congress in 1987 under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi. However, he fell out with Sonia Gandhi and again floated the NCP in 1999.

Prakash Bal, political analyst, said Pawar had become the man of the match in this election. “He (Sharad Pawar) is a very realist politician, who always fights back. One cannot discount Pawar. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was also proved wrong for declaring that this is the end of Pawar’s road in Maharashtra. I would also add that BJP’s overconfidence too is also responsible for its position today,” Bal said.