Opinion: Beyond Ajit Pawar: What Happens To Sharad Pawar's 'Succession' Plan Now?

It's too early to write the obituary of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), but the sudden death of Ajit Pawar in a plane crash is undoubtedly a near fatal blow for both factions of the party as well as the family that has controlled the politics of western Maharashtra's sugar belt and its wealthy cooperatives for more than four decades.

The timing could not be worse. Ajit Pawar's demise comes at a critical phase in the NCP's evolution after the 2023 split, which tore the party into two and divided one of Maharashtra's foremost political dynasties, pitting nephew against uncle to upturn party patriarch Sharad Pawar's carefully laid succession plan.

Firstly, the two factions (one led by Ajit Pawar and the other by Sharad Pawar) are still reeling from the shock of a virtual wipeout in their bastions of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad in the recent corporation elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) captured both, and the sweep of its victories poses an existential challenge for the two NCPs, as well as the Pawar family possibly.

What About The Unification?

Secondly, plans for reunification are now up in the air. It was Ajit Pawar who had reached out to his uncle for a merger before the corporation elections following differences with the BJP over seat-sharing. They had agreed on a step-by-step approach. The first step was to forge an alliance for the corporation polls. The next was to contest the upcoming zilla parishad elections on the same symbol. Uncle and nephew had agreed to use the clock symbol, which the Election Commission had taken away from Sharad Pawar and handed to Ajit Pawar's party.

After that, reunification was a mere formality, expected to be completed after the local polls were done. Now, it's anybody's guess whether or not the process will be completed.

Much depends on which way Ajit Pawar's 41 MLAs move in the coming weeks. Without his towering presence, they are pretty much orphaned. Given the manner in which Maharashtra parties have splintered since 2022, there is a strong possibility that they will either scatter in different directions or be welcomed wholesale by the BJP.

Not that the BJP needs those numbers. Despite the death of one of its two Deputy Chief Ministers, there is no threat to the stability of the Devendra Fadnavis-led Nationalist Democratic Alliance (NDA) state government. The BJP has 131 MLAs of its own. It also has the support of the seven MLAs it had helped win the last year's assembly election. This brings the BJP's tally to 138, just seven short of the halfway mark of 145.

Eknath Shinde's faction of the Shiv Sena adds another 57 MLAs to the NDA's strength in the assembly. While on the face of it, this would seem to make the Shinde Sena indispensable for the government's survival, the party's poor showing in the recent corporation polls has made it vulnerable, leaving it with little room for manoeuvre within the alliance.

A Dilemma For BJP

There are opportunities as well as challenges for the BJP in Ajit Pawar's unexpected demise. His NCP proved useful as a balancing force against Shinde's Sena. In fact, it was Ajt Pawar's unconditional support that cleared the way for Fadnavis to become the Chief Minister despite Shinde's tantrums and pressure tactics. Every time Shinde tried to rock the boat subsequently, Ajit Pawar came in handy to make him toe the line. In a sense, Fadnavis and the BJP have lost a valuable ally.

Yet, Ajit Pawar's death can also be seen as fortuitous for the BJP's long-term ambition to be the single dominant force in Maharashtra and form a government on its own strength in the next assembly election.

Ajit Pawar was groomed by Sharad Pawar from the early 1990s as his heir apparent. He not only familiarised himself with every nook and corner of the state, its demographics, caste composition and its geography, but also learnt from his uncle his canny political skills and the art of managing Maharashtra's complex dynamics.

Although Sharad Pawar inducted his daughter Supriya Sule into politics, there was an unstated arrangement within the family that she would be the NCP's face at the Centre where her consummate skills as a parliamentarian and her talent for making friends across the political divide (which she seems to have inherited from her father) would prove useful for the party. Ajit Pawar on the other hand, would inherit the mantle of state satrap, managing and protecting NCP bastions and trying to expand the party beyond its traditional strongholds in western Maharashtra.

An Existential Crisis

With his death, the NCP faces turmoil and uncertainty. Sule does not have the organisational skills to control the party, nor the ruthlessness that the rough and tumble of ground level politics demands. There are several younger Pawars waiting in the wings, including Ajit Pawar's son, Parth, who he had hoped would be his heir. There is also Sharad Pawar's nephew Rohit Pawar, who began his political innings after the party split in 2023.

However, both are young and inexperienced. In fact, it is said that Rohit Pawar would have lost his assembly seat in 2024 if it were not for the timely intervention of uncle Ajit who lent him a helping hand from behind the scenes.

Sharad Pawar himself is in the winter of his life. He does not have the luxury of time to groom another successor the way he mentored Ajit Pawar and prepared him for politics. Nor does he have the energy to undertake this demanding task.

These are the NCP's internal challenges that pose an existential crisis for the party. In addition, it will have to contend with the BJP's burgeoning ambitions to snuff out regional satraps and dominate the state like the Congress once did.

If Sharad Pawar fails to produce one last rabbit from his hat to revive his party after the massive loss of Ajit Pawar, the BJP juggernaut is bound to move in to occupy spaces vacated by the NCP.

After that it will only have to contend with the two Shiv Senas, one led by Shinde and the other by Uddhav Thackeray.

The political turmoil that Maharashtra has seen in the last several years looks destined to continue.

(The author is a senior Delhi-based journalist)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author