Changing game of a giant of an opportunist : Maratha strongman ... an 'eternal PM-material' despite being 8 MPs strong and a 'darling' of communists, Left liberals Pawar applauds RSS

Winning back the trust of BJP's core Other Backward Classes (OBCs) vote bank by establishing 17 new state-run corporations was attributed as one of the major reasons for NDA's sweep by Sharad Pawar.

Addressing party workers at a meeting in south Mumbai, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar behaved like a school boy who has learnt his lesson the hard way !

The former Union minister and well known 'Maratha strongman' noted the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has committed cadres who show unwavering loyalty to the Hindutva organisation's ideology and do not deviate from their path. 

Lately, several so-called Sickular leaders have been trying to give mixed signals about their attempts redesign the relationships with the Sanghparivar and the BJP. 

Taking a leaf out of RSS's book, Pawar outlined the NCP (SP)'s future strategy in the upcoming elections to be held in the state. He said that the party was aiming to give 50 per cent of seats to women from humble backgrounds in the upcoming local body elections.

To provide more incentives to party workers, Pawar said that NCP (SP) planned on promoting ground-level party workers to the top, giving them responsibilities at the local, state, and national levels.

Pawar's praise for the RSS has sparked interest as it marks a significant shift in his stance. 

The NCP (SP)'s future strategy will be closely watched, as the party seeks to regain momentum in the face of the BJP's dominance.  

"We also should have such a cadre base which is committed to ideology of Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, Mahatma Phule, BR Ambedkar and Yashwantrao Chavan," Pawar said.

Often in the past, Sharad Pawar’s friendsand foes used to say that the Maratha strongman nursed a never ending dream to be Prime Minister.

The closest to the position he came to realising his dream in 1991 after the Congress emerged as single largest party in the wake of a post-Rajv Gandhi assassination sympathy wave. 

The Congress returned an overwhelming about two dozen MPs from his state but the party decided to settle for a near-retired P V Narasimha Rao and Pawar had to settle down as his Defence Minister. 

Acidly, Rao later shunted him back to the Mantralaya in Mumbai elevating him again as the Chief Minister.

But the prospect of that near possibility never died down and ever since all his political moves  only strengthen one fact that the man still nurtured the dream of ruling India.

Such lofty goals, notwithstanding the bitter that his fledgling NCP, a splinter group of Sonia Gandhi’s outfit, had a parliamentary strength in modest single digit.

In fact, his walking out of Congress along with equally ambitious P A Sangma and a practically baseless Tariq Anwar forming the famous troika of 1999 was only a manifestation of that ambition.

Even Late Chandrashekhar, former PM used to speak on that line and also joked about Pawar often going soft on Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Even lately Mr Pawar surprised many when he took a defiant line vis-a-vis business tycoon Gautam Adani.

Born on December 12, 1940, Sharadchandra Govind Rao Pawar became the Chief Miniter for the first time in 1978 at a young age of 38 – by the standard of Indian politics.

Well, he achieved that milestone by toppling the Congress government of Vasantdada Patil, split the party, and formed a government in coalition with the then Janata Party under the banner of the Progressive Democratic Front.

Paradoxically, the man who entered the state assembly for the first time in 1967 from Baramati, which had become his pocket borough in the decades after that, is also known for frequent change of loyalties. 

His vivid untrustworthiness and abandoning the mentor Yashwantrao Chavan to win power will probably continue to haunt him and oldtimers of Maharashtra politics.

Creditably, Pawar has put onetime little known sleepy hamlet Baramati on Maharashtra's and in later stage the country’s political map. 

His victory from the constituency used to be a foregone conclusion though his election campaigning often restricted to only one public meeting on the last day.

 

The water management scheme launched by Pawar back in 1970 ensures even today that the region is not affected when the rest of the state is suffering from a drought. 

It’s sheer his hard work for the constituency that he could even win in 1984 polls braving the tidal pro-Congress wave of sympathy for the late Indira Gandhi when even other stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the late H N Bahuguna were humbled.  

In 2019, he played a game what he is best at. The deception and ideology-less move left BJP stunned as NCP joined hands with Uddhav Thackeray and also brought in Congress to form a government. 

However, in 2022, the BJP struck back and the rest is history.