What an uncle can teach his nephew

There is much to be said about Sharad Pawar's ability to be comfortable in his own skin and there are lessons in it for his nephew Ajit Pawar

Never has a loo break caused such brouhaha in a political party. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) held a convention in Delhi last weekend. Party leader Ajit Pawar, also party chief Sharad Pawar’s nephew, was present on the dais. But he walked off the stage when NCP General Secretary Praful Patel invited the party’s Maharashtra unit chief, Jayant Patil, to address the gathering, which was clamouring to hear Ajit. What appeared to upset him was that his rival had been invited to speak before he was. Eyewitnesses saw his cousin Supriya Sule running after him. But he did not return until Sharad had reached the end of his speech. Later, he explained that he had left to go to the toilet. If that is the case, it is not clear why Ms Sule scurried after him.

Of course, for those who know the background, this was hardly a surprise. Ajit has been deputy chief minister of Maharashtra but believes he hasn’t got his due. Ahead of the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, he wanted the authority to unfurl two flags at the NCP’s election rallies — the party’s tricolour and, along with that, a saffron flag emblazoned with Chhatrapati Shivaji’s image. Sharad publicly shot down the idea, calling it Ajit’s own fancy. Sharad assured his nephew he would secure the position of deputy chief minister for him under an Uddhav Thackeray-led government. But Ajit thought he could outdo his uncle in the deal-making department and, after the Assembly elections, went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with an offer it could not refuse. He returned to the family bosom when he couldn’t muster enough numbers.

A recent book by Priyam Gandhi-Mody asserts otherwise: That Ajit had the full support of his uncle in jumping ship. The book records a call Devendra Fadnavis made to Sharad to seal Ajit’s defection when talks appeared to be at such an advanced stage that the NCP and BJP discussed not just portfolios but even guardian ministers once they’d helped each other to form the government. It also describes a conversation between Sharad and Prime Minister Narendra Modi that suggests talks had progressed — before Senior Pawar changed his mind, plumping for other friends.

If this is true, Ajit, who was acting as an honest broker, must have felt pretty small. There are other past slights and frustrations. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he insisted on a ticket for his son Parth for the Maval Lok Sabha seat though Sharad publicly counselled against the move. Parth lost the election. In 2012, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced the government would release a white paper on the status of irrigation projects in Maharashtra. The minister on whom the white paper would have sat in judgement was Ajit Pawar. The announcement — maybe — took his uncle too by surprise.

The latest provocation that caused fury was the fact that Mr Patil had been given pride of place rather than him. When the Uddhav Thackeray government fell, the Shiv Sena split, and the Shinde Shiv Sena faction formed the government with the BJP, it was not Mr Patil who was named leader of the Opposition in the Assembly but Ajit Pawar. Mr Patil had already staked claim to the position and, as president of the party’s Maharashtra unit, was required to write to the speaker. When he was told it was Ajit who would be occupying the position, he simply sat on the letter: It took two calls from Mr Patel to get him to issue it.

There’s a lesson in all this. Despite his political caprice, how has Senior Pawar lasted so long in politics and has earned the respect even of his adversaries? It has to do with conduct. Mr Pawar is a Congress politician cast in the older mould — who does not believe in turning political rivalries into personal feuds. He never uses harsh language about his political opponents even during election rallies. In fact, he tries to build bridges with all his political opponents, which is why, despite being in fierce competition for number one position in Maharashtra, he shared an excellent personal rapport with the late Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and would almost certainly have managed to get his support for prime ministership if he had ever made a bid for it.

And the one thing he has certainly never done is flounce out of meetings where a rival was given pride of place. Younger leaders like Mr Fadnavis have been withering in their assessment of Sharad Pawar. At a media conclave some years ago, Mr Fadnavis said in reply to a question:  “He likes to play chess and I don’t like the game much. Sharad Pawar is incessantly obsessed with the politics of power and subterfuge, but I am only interested in development.” But Sharad Pawar is still around, and the politics of power and subterfuge is not unknown to Mr Fadnavis as recent events have shown. There is much to be said about being comfortable in your skin in politics. That comes from self-confidence —and a control on ego.