the Shiv Sena-led Uddhav Thackery cabinet, the BJP has been looking for ways to get a hold on the key state of Maharashtra.
C P Surendran
One way of looking at Maharashtra’s developments is to acknowledge how efficient India’s political system can be. On a rain-sodden Sunday, not only did Ajit Pawar have a meeting with the NCP rebels at his residence, but by afternoon, he had headed to Raj Bhavan in Malabar Hill to submit his letter of support to the government of Eknath Shinde.
The Raj Bhavan was open. Ajit Pawar then presented The List, without a list there is no politics of 40 NCP legislators to Governor Ramesh Bais. His Excellency greeted them with a smile, like a host raising a toast, and ready to make or break whole governments faster than the first whisky hitting the back of the throat.
Around 2.30 pm, Ajit and eight other stalwart MLAs took oath as ministers. Ajit is made Deputy CM. The others must wait a little for the portfolios. The portfolios have to be created. The important thing is that they have become ministers.
The Deputy CM’s post has no portfolio. The Deputy CM is a state of being. But for Ajit, this post is a kind of glass ceiling; he has been sworn in at least twice in recent times (once with Devendra Fadnavis as the CM in November 2019, and then with Fadnavis’ Opposition in the MVA government in the same month of the same year, until Eknath Shinde split from the Shiv Sena. Whose deputy Ajit became again on Sunday. Haha.).
None of this could have happened without the prime minister or the home minister in Delhi being just as responsive and competent as the administration in Mumbai. It is the Double Engine working as if there is no Sunday.
And the ever-hopeful voter has no clue who or what he/she had stood for while in the queue leading up to the booth. What he/she preferred in their wisdom as citizens has not the remotest resemblance to what they voted for.
Since the formation of the Maha Vikas Agadi (MVA) four years ago, leading to the swearing-in of the Shiv Sena-led Uddhav Thackery cabinet, the BJP has been looking for ways and means to get a hold on the key state of Maharashtra. As it happens in human affairs, they found reliable allies in their enemies.
As a result, the Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde split and formed a government with the BJP, with Devendra Fadnavis as the Deputy CM.
Fadnavis helped Ajit engineer the Sunday coup. A coup of sorts. Was it just an episode in our collective amnesia that Fadnavis had a leading hand in initiating investigations by the Enforcement Directorate against Ajit and his friends, five of whom were sworn in as ministers on Sunday?
Sharad Pawar, alternatively Ajit’s friend and foe, cannot be taught a single trick. He knows them all. And he appreciates other masters. His nonchalant comment on the events was: “I am happy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cleared some NCP colleagues of corruption charges as they are now ministers in the government. This means the allegations were baseless.”
He also said he would remain the face—not a very appealing prospect perhaps in relation to any product besides a political party—of the NCP though he had stepped down as its president only a few weeks ago.
It all boils down to just one thing: In the Indian brand of democracy, the vote is just the beginning. The real thing is the brokering of personal and political fortunes of the individual and all of it happens unbridled behind closed doors on rainy Sundays that work harder than Mondays. We are a very work-oriented nation.
The case of Ajit Pawar is intriguing. He has no great charisma. His administrative talents are uncertain. He has no sense of loyalty. His enemies—Fadnavis, Shinde, Uddhav Thackeray—are his friends. His friends—Sharad Pawar for one—his secret but intimate enemies. And he is cold as a fish. Yet Ajit has turned out to be one of the most successful political leaders of Maharashtra. What is this man? Indeed, who is he? How does his mind work? What does he see that the others can’t? What explains his grip on state politics?
Sharad Pawar, possibly the only person who might have an inkling, is himself likely to be puzzled. The exponents of the game theory in Indian politics believe that Pawar could be playing a game. That Ajit is a pawn in it. That his daughter, Supriya Sule, is another. That through the Ajit gambit he keeps the BJP on his side; through Supriya, he keeps the Congress option open. One doubts. Pawar is going on 82. He founded the NCP in 1992. To break up what he founded at this rather late stage in his life is to disrupt his political and career narrative completely.
It is just possible that his nephew (63), having waited all his life, has finally stepped out of his uncle’s shadow, the earlier attempts explained as rehearsals. Maybe it is Ajit’s way of thanking his uncle. A mentor is truly honoured only when he is destroyed.
So that was the Sunday that was. I happened to be in Bombay. It rained. You saw some old skyscrapers were not visible for the new ones. In the distance, a mall emerged like a spectre out of the rain mist. The traffic lights shone dully red and green on the wet roads. The Metro ran on time. Most passengers carried umbrellas. One girl got in with a white raincoat on. All around her feet was a circle of water, from the raindrops running down. There were the announcements. Of doors closing. Of stations coming. Outside, an entire coup was happening on one of the most silent Sundays of the year. No one knew. The city grounded on.
The real thing is the brokering of personal and political fortunes of the individual and all of it happens unbridled behind closed doors on rainy Sundays that work harder than Mondays. We are a very work-oriented nation.
C P Surendran is Poet, novelist, and screenplay writer. His latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip.
