Can The Pawars Survive The House Of Cards?

“Arre deva (oh god)! There are two Nationalist Congress Parties (NCP) now, aren’t there!” 80-year-old Muktabai Sable exclaims, as the Lok Sabha candidate of NCP’s Sharad Pawar faction, Supriya Sule, marches by her house in Baramati’s Aamrai neighbourhood. Sable lives a stone’s throw away from the home of NCP founder Sharad Pawar, who is also the candidate’s father and regarded as the grand patriarch of Maharashtra politics.

While Sule bows and smiles as she walks by, Sable and other voters like her in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency appear to be befuddled by the recent political saga that has split the NCP and the powerful Pawar clan.

Dressed in a yellow cotton saree, Sule braves the peak noon sun to make a last-minute appeal to the voters, ahead of the May 7 polls. “Ram Krishna Hari, Vazwa Tutari (Blow the Trumpet),” she says, letting voters know about her party’s new symbol; a man blowing turha, a traditional trumpet. She also reminds them that she and her party, NCP (SP), are listed third on the EVM roster.

Days earlier, Sunetra Pawar, Sule’s sister-in-law and candidate for the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, visited the same neighbourhood to woo voters. "Only vote for ghadyal (clock), no other symbol,” she urged, informing people that her name was on the second button of the EVM, just above Sule’s.

“Both are our daughters. Saheb is ours, so is dada. How can we give a vote to one and turn against the other,” Sable explains her dilemma, which has gripped her and the rest of Baramati ahead of polling day. The district, which serves as a gateway to Western Maharashtra’s agriculture belt, is situated on the fertile Deccan plateau. It straddles both geographic halves, one cursed with rain-shadow and the other blessed with rich black soil.

In 2024, however, voters, like the politically influential Satav family, are finding it difficult to come to grips with the division that the Pawar clan and the NCP have been split into.

Once united in allegiance to the united Pawar clan, father and son, Sadashiv and Sachin, now find themselves on opposing sides. Sadashiv is the head of Sharad Pawar’s campaign while Sachin is campaigning for Ajit Pawar. Despite their differences, Sachin says: “Our political ideologies can differ, but we can still coexist under the same roof.”

The Baramati district has been the political fiefdom of the Pawar family for more than fifty years and the unquestioned turf of the NCP, since the party’s inception in the late 1990s. Here, the personal is political and the political is personal. And of course, there is the third P that invariably influences most aspects of life in these parts: the Pawars.

The Pawars could well star in a Maharashtra version of the House of Cards featuring senior Pawar, affectionately known as saheb, alongside nephew Ajit, daughter Supriya and nephew’s wife Sunetra, all once united under one family and party. Sunetra, from the royal Patil family of Osmanabad, has seen her brother Padamsinh, a former minister and MP, switch sides to support Ajit and the BJP.

Throughout their political journey, the Pawars have had a firm grip on power, especially since 2000, when the NCP first gained power in Maharashtra in alliance with the Congress.

Not anymore. In a loyalty test, Sule and Sunetra are now rivals in their first electoral face-off, with Sunetra aiming to defeat her sister-in-law. “Not even in my dreams, did I imagine fighting an election. Until now, I used to campaign for tai, but this time I have to ask for votes for myself,” Sunetra Pawar said during her campaign in Baramati.

The intense family feud adds spice to the political drama, elevating the stakes in the Lok Sabha election, with Sharad Pawar, 83, hitting the campaign trail alongside grandson Rohit Pawar for his daughter Supriya in the blazing heat.

Baramati, with an electorate of over 20 lakh voters, is the most significant among the ten seats contested by the NCP’s Sharad Pawar faction in Maharashtra. Their ally Shiv Sena (UBT) competes for 21 seats, while the Congress vies for 17, uniting to challenge the BJP-Shiv Sena and NCP-Ajit Pawar alliance. For the BJP and Ajit Pawar’s NCP, winning Baramati is crucial, considering its potential to deliver a debilitating blow to Sharad Pawar’s clout in regional politics. Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman personally visited the district in 2022 as part of the BJP’s ‘Mission 45’ to win 45 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra.

According to the NCP workers, after the BJP-Shinde government assumed power, proposals for projects and schemes they had initiated were held back and there were long delays in fund disbursal. “Being in opposition was proving very difficult. As a guardian minister, dada was getting fewer funds. Our plans for development and promises made to people were paused. Ajit dada realised that if he wants to get the work done, he must be in power,” says Dhanvan Vardak, 70, executive chairman of the NCP.

Ajit Pawar’s NCP emphasises ‘development by being in power’ in the Lok Sabha polls, while Sunetra’s campaigners highlight her husband’s role as deputy chief minister, pledging to tackle longstanding issues. Sunetra urges voters to prioritise development and secure future funds from Delhi.

“Everyone knows dada is Maharashtra’s hardest-working political leader. He wakes up daily at 6 am and evaluates work with IAS officials, attending to people’s complaints apart from his routine work, right up to midnight,” says Navid Pathan. “Now, because he is in power, he has full liberty to get the work done,” a former journalist-turned-NCP worker said.

Sameer Mulani, an NCP worker who is close to Sunetra Pawar, credits Ajit Pawar for Baramati’s development. Baramati is famed for milk and sugar cooperatives, sugarcane, grapes and the production of mangos. “He brought MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) here and created job opportunities. Irrigation and canal development have made out-of-season agriculture possible. He has a vision and pays personal attention to people,” he says.

Party members said the cracks in the NCP and between the uncle and nephew were not engineered by the BJP, but have emerged through a decade. Sachin Satav remembered the shock among party workers when Sharad Pawar announced his support to the BJP on the day of the vote count, after campaigning against the party in the 2014 elections.

In an unexpected bender in 2019, Ajit Pawar, apparently, at the behest of Sharad Pawar attended an early morning oath ceremony as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister alongside Devendra Fadnavis as the CM. The Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar government survived for less than 80 hours. Sharad Pawar then stitched an unexpected alliance with the Congress and Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray to form the ruling government of Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA). “It was the most embarrassing and humiliating for dada. The whole of Maharashtra was abusing him and he could not even reveal the reason when it was all done at the behest of Sharad Pawar,” Satav alleged.

In May 2023, Sharad Pawar briefly resigned as party president but was urged by party workers to withdraw it. Speculation arose that he intended to pass leadership to his daughter, Supriya, which Ajit Pawar opposed, citing his own 30 years of dedication to Baramati.

According to Milind Kathe, Kathewadi’s deputy sarpanch, Ajit conveyed to the senior Pawar that he must lead the party and that workers were ready to follow his directives. Kathewadi is the Pawar family’s ancestral village. “Dada has given his all to grow and make the party’s footprint bigger. He has nurtured the party and constituency. If out of 54 MLAs, 42 have gone with him, it means they must have seen something right in going with Ajit Pawar.” Kathe said party workers on the ground believed it was unfair for dada to take orders from Supriya tai. “She neither goes on the ground, nor does she know our names and faces, the way dada does.”

The younger generation appears to be supportive of Ajit Pawar’s bid to step out of his uncle’s shadow and carve his own path, endorsing his ambition to become Maharashtra’s chief minister. “For how long should he wait to lead the party? He has crossed his 60s. This was the right time for him to grab the opportunity. There is nothing wrong if he decides to break away,” says Milind’s brother, Nitin Kathe.

Ajit’s latest rebellion and his alliance with the BJP are viewed by some in Baramati as an attempt to usurp his uncle’s political legacy in the latter’s sunset years.

“The BJP plans to finish the opposition in Maharashtra by targeting Sharad Pawar that is why they broke the party. It has lured Ajit Pawar by giving him the post of deputy CM, as a means to achieve that. How can he not understand it?” asks Narayan Walhekar, 38, an NCP supporter, who decided to get on the ground and campaign by Sule’s side because “saheb and tai have been left alone to fend for themselves.”

Kathewadi too faces a conflict. Historically supportive of the NCP, it’s now torn between BJP-backed Sunetra Pawar and Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, weighing Ajit’s work against sympathy for the patriarch Pawar.

Seated at the village hall, surrounded by houses named ‘Dadachi Krupa’ (Dada’s blessings) and ‘Matoshree’ after Shiv Sena chief Thackeray’s Mumbai residence, elders express fury over the split. “The Brahmins (Fadnavis led BJP) have broken our party,” they lament. “What he did was not correct. He should never have brought such a time upon us,” others collectively murmur. “Saheb is the bhishmapitamah of Maharashtra. Till he is alive, the BJP cannot defeat the opposition,” says Balkrushna Kathe, 75, passionately. He highlighted senior Pawar’s contributions as an Agriculture Minister and Member of Parliament, while also emphasising dada’s role in developing Baramati. “Saheb developed the country but dada has developed our villages. We also can’t forget that he is there because of saheb,” Kathe muses.

Villagers claim to owe their current prosperity to the development steered by Ajit and Sunetra Pawar. In 2006, Kathewadi was awarded nirmal gram status for eradicating open defecation. “Villagers would sit in the open to defecate every morning. Dada and vahini have cleaned it. Today, it is an eco-friendly village, beautifully lined with trees, which Dada himself selected and we all take great care to keep it clean,” says Prithviraj Kathe, 22, a young villager.

Villagers remember Sunetra hoicking her saree and picking up a broom herself during a clean-up drive. Unlike other Pawar family members, villagers said Ajit and Sunetra have maintained a strong connection with them. “They changed the mindset of the villagers and organised them socially. Today, Kathewadi is a model village,” says Sujata Shivaji Pawar, a relative. Sujata is confident Kathewadi will vote unanimously for Sunetra out of “love and respect”.

The BJP’s support strengthens Ajit’s faction, notably in Khadakwasla and Daund, while the Sharad Pawar faction dominates the other four talukas. Rahul Kul, the BJP MLA, cites a decade of growth, estimating around five lakh votes, inspired by his wife, Kanchan’s, 2019 Lok Sabha run. “The BJP has always fought against the Pawars. Our ideologies are different. But we have decided to leave our local conflicts aside and support Sunetra Pawar.”

Many local leaders have now shifted allegiance to Ajit Pawar ahead of polls, notes political observer Shashank Mohite. Traditionally, Baramatikars supported Sharad Pawar and Sule in the Lok Sabha but reserved votes for Ajit Pawar in the assembly polls. This time, Sule’s Delhi political experience contrasts with Ajit’s local backing, yet many remain loyal to Sharad Pawar’s anti-BJP stance.

In water-starved clusters across 22 villages in Baramati, Daund and Purandar talukas, the Pawars’ ideology and feud hold little relevance. Despite representing the district for 55 years, the powerful clan failed to address chronic water shortages. Jalgaon Supe village, roughly 16 km from Baramati town, has to buy water every summer from the neighbouring village of Deulgaon. “Ours is the only village that has been left parched for decades. We do not benefit from the state’s irrigation scheme. Our water problem can be resolved by building a water pathway for 1.5 km and connecting it to a nearby canal, but unfortunately, the Pawars have ignored our pleas,” says Sameer Khomane, the deputy sarpanch and an NCP worker. He is hopeful that Ajit Pawar, now in charge, will address the problem. “We hope dada will be able to do, what saheb could not.”

Shweta Desai in Baramati

(This appeared in the print as 'House of Cards')