- Jet Speed Politics
- The NDA’s Rapid Response to a Leadership Vacuum
- The Balancing Act: How Devendra Fadnavis Navigates a Post-Ajit Pawar Era
Sunetra Pawar, wife of Ajit Pawar, was sworn in on Saturday evening as the first woman Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra on the third day of her husband’s demise. The unseemly haste was the result of the unification move which was initiated by Ajit Pawar two weeks ago when he met his uncle Sharad Pawar on January 16. Both Sharad and Ajit Pawar were expected to declare the merger of the two factions on February 12. The prospect of the merger made the leaders of Ajit’s faction hurry up and make a deal with the BJP leadership. The NDA partners are keen on maintaining the status quo. The faction led by Sharad Pawar is left behind.
In a situation that was fast changing in the wake of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s death in a helicopter crash at Baramati airport on Wednesday, the ruling NDA alliance has acted at jet speed and clinched the issue by making Ajit’s wife Sunetra take her husband’s place in the Cabinet and the party. Sunetra is a Rajya Sabha Member. Now she is deputy chief minister, leader of the NCP legislature party and the president of the NCP (Ajit Pawar). The NDA partners had a huddle on Friday and invited Sunetra to fill the big shoes of her husband.
BJP & Fadnavis: The Strategic Landscape
There were opportunities as well as challenges for the BJP and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the unprecedented demise. For Fadnavis it is a sad news but a game changer as well. He has been using Ajit Pawar as a balancing force to take care of another Deputy CM Eknath Shinde who is ambitious and a hard bargainer. It was Ajit Pawar’s unconditional support that cleared the way for Fadnavis to become chief minister in spite of Shinde’s pressure tactics. In a way Fadnavis and the BJP have lost a valuable ally in Ajit Pawar, a six times deputy chief minister and eight-term MLA.
The Legacy and Contradictions of Ajit Pawar
When Ajit Dada, as he was affectionately called by his friends and admirers, entered politics in 1991, he was elected to Lok Sabha from Baramati and later vacated the seat for his uncle Sharad Pawar. Ever since then, he settled down in the state politics. Ajit Pawar had earned a reputation, besides the corruption allegations, for his administrative abilities and no-nonsense attitude. He is known as a rare politician who sticks to his promise. Ajit Pawar has quick decision-making style. He got out of NCP and was sworn in as deputy chief minister in Devendra Fadnavis government one fine morning in early hours. That government had lasted just 80 hours. He went back to the mother party leading to a new opposition government headed by Uddhav Thakerey. He was again responsible for the fall of Uddhav government and stabilizing NDA government. Though he was a deputy chief minister again in the BJP-led dispensation, he refused to be part of the rightist campaign against Muslims. He never gave up his secular credentials.
The untimely death of Ajit Dada can be seen as an opportunity for the BJP to realize its dream of becoming the sole party to run the show in Maharashtra. The BJP has 131 MLAs on its own. It has the support of seven MLAs it helped to win in the last elections. The BJP has thus 138 MLAs in all. Ekanth Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction brings 57 MLAs. Shinde who was very proud of his strength in the Assembly had to mellow down after poor performance in local body polls. With this Shinde has lost the power to manage. The BJP could, if it so wishes, get rid of Shinde by encouraging defections from his faction or the orphaned faction of Ajit Pawar. The saffron party has decided not to be adventurous but play cool and accommodate Sunetra.
Over the past three decades, and especially the last few years, Ajit Pawar occupied a critical position in Maharashtra politics. Ajit Dada had no need to travel so early in the morning to campaign in Zilla Parishad elections in Baramati which has been his forte. Competitive politics are forcing big leaders not to leave any chance to impress the people weather it is Lok Sabha, Assembly or local body elections. The NCP factions led by Ajit Pawar and his uncle Sharad Pawar have been planning to merge. They made certain moves during the local body elections in which both the factions contested together but did not do well even in Western Maharashtra, their bastion.
A Faction Orphaned: Three Paths Forward for NCP Workers
With the exit of Ajit Pawar, the NCP workers are the worst affected. They did not know where to go. They had three options. Firstly, they can run the party independently evolving space for itself. Secondly, go back to Sharad Pawar as their leader. The third option is to take shelter under BJP umbrella. The leaders of Ajit faction of NCP appear to have preferred the first option. With Sunetra taking over as deputy chief minister and leader of NCP faction headed Ajit Pawar the dilemma is over for the leaders and the followers. Right from the day Ajit dada joined Fadnavis for the second time with a considerable number of MLAs and helped the BJP to stabilize in power which it had snatched from the opposition thanks to Eknath Shinde who had split Shiv Sena and fell the government led by Uddhav Thakerey, he has been very useful to Fadnavis. Ajit Dada’s faction fared well during the 2025 Assembly elections. It developed problems with the BJP which has been refusing to concede space to either Ajit Pawar or Shinde. Ajit had a spat with the BJP in urban elections. For that the NCP factions have paid the price in local body elections by performing poorly even in the sugar belt.
Remembering Ajit Pawar’s Role in the “Sugar Belt”
Ajit Dada is a special leader in the sense that he had close rapport with some strong local leaders who have no ideological compulsions but are keen on coming up in politics. He was also close to Maratha champions. In the last ten years, the BJP has been trying to win Maharashtra. It sidelined not only the national opposition party, the Congress, but also split the regional parties like Shiv Sena and the NCP throwing principled politics to the wind. The BJP leadership thought it wise to keep its ambition on the back burner and sail with both Shinde and Ajit Pawar’s faction. Leaders owing their allegiance to Ajit Pawar are more inclined to join hands with the ruling BJP rather than Sharad Pawar and take the risk of moving to opposition benches again. When asked by media whether Sharad Pawar was consulted by the Ajit Pawar group before Sunetra agreed to take oath as deputy chief minister, the elder Pawar said his family was not consulted.
The thorough politician among ll is Sharad Pawar
Both the BJP and the NCP indulged in unprincipled politics. The ace journalist Rajdeep Sardesai in his weekly video ‘Straight Bat’ has revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sharad Pawar tried to work together on at least four separate occasions.
The first was in 2014 when Maharashtra Assembly elections threw a fractured mandate. Modi was keen on setting Shiv Sena aside and align with NCP which had declared outside support to the BJP. It could not materialize. Then in 2017 the BJP and Sena were having issues. BJP offered chairmanship of Agriculture Reforms Commission with central cabinet rank to him and a cabinet berth to Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule. It fell through as Supriya was not very keen and the RSS did not like the idea. In 2019, the BJP was about to join hands with the NCP. Ajit Pawar and Praful Patel represented Sharad Pawar and Amit Shah represented Narendra Modi in Delhi talks. It could not happen this time too.
Finally, there was another attempt in 2022 when there was a serious move to have a tie-up with NCP. When Sonia Gandhi agreed for a broader alliance between Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP the talks with the BJP were broken and a government under the leadership of Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thakerey was formed. Modi and Amit Shah were furious with Pawar. The business magnate who has been trying his best to bring Modi and Pawar together Gautam Adani was crestfallen. Then the BJP has engineered a split in Shiv Sena by luring Eknath Shinde and toppled Uddhav government and formed an NDA government with Shinde as chief minister. With vulgar and unabashedly opportunistic politics in vogue Maharashtra had four governments in the span of six years.
Rajdeep has revealed that two weeks before his demise Ajit Pawar had told him that the BJP was spending hundreds of crores of rupees to defeat NCP candidates in Pune municipal elections. There was no love lost between the BJP and its allies. BJP is not happy with Eknath Shinde either. What has been practised is power politics. Now all eyes are on Sharad Pawar, the manipulator par excellence, provided his age does not create hurdles.
Prominent Journalist
Dr. K. Ramachandra Murthy is a versatile journalist with a distinguished career. Dr. Murthy began his extensive career with Andhra Prabha of The Indian Express group in Bengaluru. He was editor of Udayam, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothy. Dr. Murthy founded and edited HMTV news channel and The Hans India, an English newspaper. He was also editorial director of the Telugu newspaper, Saakshi. He was awarded Ph. D for his research work in rural reporting. Dr. Murthy’s five decades in journalism showcases his influential roles across both print and electronic media. He wrote the political biography of NTR published by Harper Collins.
