Editorial: Pawar play in Maharashtra

Shinde’s grip over governance may weaken in the days ahead as Ajit Pawar is a strong administrator and a wily politician

For political observers familiar with the toppling games patented by the BJP leadership, the latest developments in Maharashtra should come as no surprise. The revolt in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by the ever-restive Ajit Pawar, and the swift defection of his faction to the Shiv Sena-BJP government fall into a template that has been mastered by the saffron party over the years. The fact that all the NCP legislators who switched to the ruling combine have the Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases pending against them explains it all. The political drama will only lead to more instability in the government, with multiple power centres pulling in different directions. Instead of ‘Double Engine’ Sarkar, the oft-repeated slogan of the BJP, Maharashtra can now boast of a ‘Triple Engine’ Sarkar with Pawar, the nephew of the octogenarian Maratha strongman and the NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, taking over as the deputy Chief minister, sharing the honours with Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP. For Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, things could quickly turn nasty as his party will lose its exclusivity and will be forced to share power with a third partner. The BJP’s reliance on the Shinde faction to run a stable government will be reduced. Shinde’s grip over governance may weaken in the days ahead as Ajit Pawar is seen as a strong administrator and a wily politician with much more experience in governance. It could also get morally difficult for the Shinde-led party to justify joining hands with the Ajit-led NCP since they had claimed during the rebellion last year that an alliance with NCP in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was unnatural, and that Sena founder Bal Thackeray would never have endorsed it.

The latest political coup is different from what Ajit Pawar had attempted in 2019 when he became the deputy CM for less than 48 hours following the infamous early morning oath-taking ceremony in Mumbai. This time around, several Sharad Pawar loyalists, including Chhagan Bhujbal, Dilip Walse Patil and Hassan Mushrif, have switched loyalties and have been rewarded with cabinet berths. However, there is an inherent political instability in the present arrangement. There is an ongoing legal challenge to Shinde and other Shiv Sena MLAs who revolted last year and joined hands with the BJP to form the government. Apart from raising questions of propriety and political morality, the latest muddle in the NCP is a serious blow to the efforts of the opposition parties to stitch together an anti-BJP formation at the national level, a project in which Sharad Pawar has huge political stakes. With 40 of NCP’s 53 MLAs backing his nephew, Pawar may not be left with much electoral heft. At the same time, it is hard to believe that the Maratha strongman was clueless about the brewing storm of rebellion by his nephew, a trusted loyalist for decades.

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