The free agent

In July 1978, Sharad Pawar became the youngest chief minister of Maharashtra. Mr Pawar walked out of the Vasantdada Patil government and almost overnight cobbled together another formation composed of opposition MLAs and got the top job. The betrayal left Patil shattered and he was never the same again.

Those adroit moves showed that Mr Pawar was an overly ambitious politician who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Second, and more important, it demonstrated his vast network of friends. No other Congressman could have got the Janata Party’s MLAs, which included both socialists and Jan Sanghis, to back him barely a year after the Emergency had been lifted. That required consummate skill and audacity and Mr Pawar had both.
Mr Pawar has not lost either of these attributes. His ambition is unbounded and now his sights are set higher. And he still can teach Dale Carnegie a lesson or two on how to win friends and influence people. From Parkash Singh Badal to Balasaheb Thackeray, from BJPwallahs to the Leftists, Mr Pawar can summon their support at any time. This has to be kept in mind in order to make sense of his latest moves. By letting it be known that he is unhappy with the UPA and is ready to even sit outside the government, Mr Pawar is signalling to his friends that he is back in the game and a free agent, ready to align with anyone when the time comes. In short, he has thrown his hat into the ring for 2014.
True to his style, it has all been done with enormous subtlety and cleverness. Note that he and his party have no real, specific grievance against the Congress. It is all about coalition dharma, governance issues and other such platitudes. There was some talk about not getting the seat next to the Prime Minister after Pranab Mukherjee left the Cabinet, but the ever-shrewd Mr Pawar immediately squashed that speculation, fully realising that such a display of pettiness would not befit a man of his stature. It’s not that he does not feel slighted at playing second, even third fiddle to the Congress bigwigs, but he wants to show he is above it all. He cannot but feel upset that this government has only given him agriculture, never the more glamorous portfolios of home, finance, foreign affairs or even defence (this last portfolio was his in the Narasimha Rao government, when Mrs Sonia Gandhi was not yet in politics.) Moreover, he may have made his peace with Mrs Gandhi but that does not mean they are friends.
On the part of the Congress, it just does not trust Mr Pawar. He left the party twice, the first time in 1978 and subsequently when he revolted against “foreigner” Sonia Gandhi and walked out with some others to form his own Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Subsequently he joined hands with the Congress at the state level and at the Centre; in Mumbai the allies are constantly sniping at each other but in Delhi he has maintained cordial ties with Prime minister Manmohan Singh and even Mrs Gandhi. So what has changed suddenly?
The presidential elections, the results of which will be known today, have acted as a catalyst for major political realignments. The Trinamul Congress, while supporting Mr Mukherjee with a heavy heart, is already looking to leave the UPA. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party is temporarily aligned with the Congress at the Centre but for how long? Nitish Kumar is distancing himself from the NDA. The BJP is facing inner turmoil at the prospect of Narendra Modi being projected as the prime ministerial candidate. And freelance players like Naveen Patnaik and J. Jayalalithaa are looking for alliance opportunities. And a consensus is emerging that the Congress is in no shape to win the elections in 2014. In this fluid situation, no one wants to be caught out in the wrong place.
Mr Pawar sees an opportunity in this flux. He had similar hopes in 2009, but the UPA sprung a surprise and returned to power. This time round he feels he has a better chance as a compromise Third/Fourth Front candidate; he feels confident that even the BJP will back him if it cannot form the government with the NDA. Certainly, from the BJP’s point of view, Mr Pawar makes a better friend than Mr Kumar with his constant pinpricks about secularism.
Mr Pawar has another cause for worry. The growing profile of Rahul Gandhi in the Congress and possibly the government is something the Maratha strongman will find very difficult to swallow. As a veteran of the Congress Party and culture since Mrs Indira Gandhi’s days, this is something that Mr Pawar will definitely see as a kind of come down.
Thus, even if there is no apparent precipitous reason for Mr Pawar and his party to say goodbye to the UPA, he has to start preparing the grounds for an exit. As it is the NCP is feeling the heat in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, in his quiet but efficient way, has put pressure on his allies; the worst the NCP can say about him is that he is too slow to take a decision, but no one can call him corrupt. He has turned out to be a good politician and an able administrator. The NCP is now chafing but can do very little.
But Mr Pawar will ultimately require more than ambition and networking to pull off a coup and become the Prime Minister, even in a hung Parliament. He has just nine MPs — even the Shiv Sena has more, to say nothing of the Janata Dal (U) or the Trinamul Congress. Why should Mr Kumar or Ms Banerjee not dream of the top job? Or for that matter Mr Patnaik with his 14 MPs? The bitter truth is that despite his stature in Maharashtra and his experience, Mr Pawar has not been able to do well in the elections. That remains a major handicap.
This, however, will not stop him from trying; the crown in Delhi remains his greatest dream and Mr Pawar is nothing if not a trier. For the moment, he has given notice to the UPA that he has his own plans for 2014 and that they shouldn’t take him for granted. A walkout seems a distant prospect and neither side wants to break off the relationship, but Mr Pawar, like Barkis, has once again declared to everyone that he is willing.