Mumbai: Before he passed away, Sharad Pawar’s elder brother Anantrao Pawar had entrusted his son Ajit Pawar to his sibling and said, “Look after him well.”
Sharad Pawar took upon himself to do more by grooming the nephew into a politician of much worth by putting him through the paces, via a taluk level cooperative bank, a sugar cooperative, the Zilla Parishad, Assembly et al.
The grooming included two terms in the Lok Sabha, a seat he filled when the uncle had other political offices to hold or vacate it for him. Seven times Ajit Pawar was elected to the Maharashtra State Assembly and is the only longest serving deputy chief minister under several chief ministers. He knows his job and works hard. He is his own self now.
The senior Pawar overlooked some faults of the nephew. In one conversation I recall, the roughness of Ajit Pawar’s way of talking came up but it was summarily dismissed. “He is born in a Maratha family but he speaks like a well-mannered Brahmin.” Very much later, when people complained of a dried-up reservoir, the younger politician shot back: “Do you expect me to urinate there to fill it up?”
Of course he atoned for it by sitting at the smarak of Yashwant Chavan, who was a long-time chief minister of Maharashtra and later called up to Delhi to run the Defence Ministry. But Ajit Pawar’s public speeches are rough hewn but he makes his point.
Sharad Pawar presides over an extended family of brothers, nephews and nieces. One unfailing routine is to meet for a few days during the Diwali season in the village of Katyachiwadi in Baramati and each member of the clan is expected to be present. Ajit was part of the large gathering and has visited the place a couple of times “because we are a family.”
What is clear is that if you belong to the clan, you are expected to take political cues from him though there has been some diversity. Sharad Pawar’s mother, Sharadabai, was a Zilla Parishad member but espoused the cause of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP). She didn’t mind when he chose the Congress. His brother-in-law, D. B. Patil also belonged to that same party.
Now, Ajit Pawar belongs to another party. That split in the Nationalist Congress Party, founded by Sharad Pawar because of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign antecedents, has also split the party but almost all of the family is with the patriarch. Ajit regrets it but has to continue to plough his lonely furrow now having done the mischief. His agony came up when he filed his nomination from Baramati for the Assembly seat.
He has spoken of his “mistake” of fielding his wife, Sunetra against his cousin and Sharad Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule for the Lok Sabha. He massively failed and the number of MLAs his party has in the legislature, got her into the Rajya Sabha. But he put it differently. The Pawar clan had “erred” like him by putting up his own nephew, Yugendra against him. Yugendra’s father is Shreeniwas, his elder brother.
His face-saving argument was illogical. “Didn’t I file the nomination first?” That should have deterred the clan from putting up a rival from within the large family. Ajit should know better because when mature politicians put up a candidate, there are various parameters under consideration. Names are not picked at the snap of a finger.
Ajit Pawar is himself the boss of a party where he consults others but makes his choices, including for the Assembly. He has gone against his cohorts in the party but has taken unusual decisions like picking up a candidate for a Mumbai city seat though the ally, Bharatiya Janata Party didn’t want, Nawab Mailk who has allegations against him of associating with a gangster.
But that loss of a family does nag. Way back in September, he had spoken of his “mistake” in splitting a family for a political reason. He counselled an aspirant, Bhagyashri of the party not to rebel against her father for he had “made a mistake like that.” She didn’t listen to his advice and joined Sharad Pawar’s NCP and got a ticket to fight her father from a Gadchiroli constituency.
He has, as of now, lost a family when he prioritised politics. He has admitted and loudly voiced ambition of becoming a chief minister. For a long, long time, Ajit Pawar was chafing at the prospect of who had an upper hand in the Pawar family politics–he or his cousin Supriya. Sharad Pawar never explained that. That uncertainty too must have troubled him.
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