At a time when several top NCP leaders are under the scanner for multicrore corruption charges, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s planned visit to Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar’s stronghold Baramati on Saturday has fuelled intense speculation in Maharashtra.
Mr. Modi had given a clarion call to wipe out the Pawars from State politics during the BJP’s campaign for the Maharashtra Assembly election last year. For him to come on an ostensibly non-political visit, to inaugurate the Krishi Vidyan Kendra building, is a surprise, so soon after the Delhi poll debacle.
The project was approved when the NCP chief was the Union Agriculture Minister in the UPA government.
The Delhi poll rout and the resurgence of the Aam Aadmi Party has suddenly made the BJP vulnerable at the Centre and the State where relations with its disgruntled saffron ally, the Shiv Sena, have hit an all-time low.
Observers feel that the Baramati meet will certainly raise Mr. Pawar’s profile, while sending a veiled message to the Sena that if the latter exited the government, the NCP could always step in, lending outside support.
“The flow of events has neatly fitted in with the wily Maratha strongman’s calculations to stave off his party’s descent into political oblivion,” said a Pune-based analyst.
All analysts admire Mr. Pawar’s moves: announcing the NCP’s unconditional (albeit unsolicited) support to the then minority BJP government in Maharashtra last year, the replay of Mr. Modi’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign in Baramati with Mr. Pawar hitting the streets with broom in hand and most recently, his refraining from any criticism of Mr. Modi at the two-day NCP conclave in Pune.
With Arvind Kejriwal’s stunning win, Mr. Pawar, with his party’s poor performance in the parliamentary and the State polls, will not be in the reckoning to lead a Third Front. To preserve his political existence, a backdoor relationship with Mr. Modi certainly makes sense, say political observers.
“The media is needlessly attaching political significance when there isn’t any. The NCP and the BJP have been politically and ideologically opposed and will continue to be so,” said Pune NCP leader Ankush Kakade, reiterating that Mr. Pawar could have joined the BJP long ago had he so desired.
After all, Presidents and Prime Ministers in the past, including BJP leader and the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had visited Baramati and admired its development, pointed out Mr. Kakade.
The Shiv Sena, chafing under the BJP’s thumb in the State but still clinging on to power, has desisted from commenting on the meet.
Interestingly, while the BJP and the NCP have been at pains to downplay any political significance, top leaders of the Congress too have chimed in.
“It is a non-political visit,” said senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, an invitee to the Modi-Pawar luncheon.
Mr. Vikhe-Patil, who served in the 1995-99 Shiv Sena-BJP government and is known for his good relations with Mr. Pawar, also said in Pune that the NCP would need the Congress’s support to rebuild its base in the State.
Mr. Vikhe-Patil, viewed as a ‘compromise man’, is unlike his Congress colleague Prithviraj Chavan who held Mr. Pawar responsible for the rupture in the Congress-NCP coalition and remarked that the NCP chief was in cahoots with the BJP prior to the Maharashtra Assembly polls.
“The opportunistic nature of Sharad Pawar’s politics is well-known. However, we would prefer to comment after the meeting and only if something significant occurs,” said senior Sena leader Neelam Gorhe.
