How Balasaheb's 'sack of flour' is known to go against the grain

Did Sharad Pawar get his timing right to save NCP and unify the Opposition?

Balasaheb Thackeray would call Sharad Pawar “maidyaacha pota” (sack of flour). While they were friends outside of the political arena, it was not a moniker of endearment.

In his memoirs, On My Terms, Pawar writes that Thackeray, “a cartoonist par excellence”, made “fun” of his “heavy girth”.

Did Thackeray also intend to describe Pawar as sluggish in his political manoeuvres?

Pawar has shown throughout his 63-year-long political career and did so again last week when he threatened to quit as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and relented three days later, heeding pleading party workers and leaders, that the 82-year-old “sack of flour” remains one of the swiftest tacticians in Indian politics.

Pawar’s threat united his party behind him, possibly staved off a putative split led by his nephew Ajit Pawar, who is chafing at not replacing his uncle at the top of the NCP and triggered vociferous appeals from Opposition leaders to stay on for the sake of shaping their unity efforts.

The political drama that Pawar unveiled on May 2, reminiscent of Thackeray’s resignation as Shiv Sena chief after Chhagan Bhujbal’s rebellion in 1992 to get the workers united by him, has seemingly subsided with Pawar back in control of his party and a sought-after leader in the Opposition.

But trouble for the NCP could erupt again when the Supreme Court (SC) gives its verdict in the case related to the disqualification of 16 Shiv Sena Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), led by Eknath Shinde.

The Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government currently has 162 MLAs in a House of 288.

On Saturday, a day after withdrawing his threat to quit, Pawar said in Baramati that he thinks the government will survive even if the SC verdict goes against it as it has the requisite numbers.

On paper, the alliance would still have a wafer-thin but fragile majority as several Independents and smaller parties currently support it.

The SC disqualifying the 16 MLAs would, therefore, give impetus to the ruling coalition to lure NCP legislators, many of whom might find the opportunity to have a finger in the pie of government resources more alluring for a year or so rather than face an election right away.

The NCP is known to lend Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state governments outside support. In March, the NCP announced its seven MLAs would support the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-BJP government in Nagaland. The BJP and Sena fought the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly polls separately, with the BJP falling 23 seats short of the majority mark, and the NCP promised not to pull down the government, starting a five-year-long phase between 2014 and 2019 where it politically flirted with the BJP.

In March, according to sources, the BJP state leadership proposed that the elections to the Maharashtra Assembly could be advanced from October 2024 to take place simultaneously with the Lok Sabha (LS) in April/May 2024.

“With mounting anti-incumbency, especially in rural areas, the Shinde-Fadnavis coalition would want to contest the Assembly polls on national rather than local issues on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma,” says Maharashtra-based political commentator Anant Bagaitkar, who has closely tracked Pawar’s career for decades.

On April 30, a couple of days before Pawar shared his plan to quit as chief of the party he had founded 24 years back, the Maha Vikas Aghadi — which comprises the NCP, Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena — outclassed the ruling alliance in Maharashtra’s ‘bazaar committee’ elections, controlling 81 of 147 agriculture produce marketing committees against Shinde and BJP’s 42.

The NCP, whose primary base is among farmers, now knows there are green shoots for the alliance and possibly, at least, farmers are getting disillusioned, says Bagaitkar.

Moreover, the Shinde-led Sena needs to pull its weight in the coalition, the BJP leadership increasingly feels. It is losing ground after every political rally and meeting of Uddhav Thackeray. At stake are 48 LS seats, the second highest in the country after Uttar Pradesh, with the BJP and Sena alliance winning 41 in 2019, but also ruling India’s wealthiest state.

Pawar is known to have brought disparate individuals and groups together for a cause, as he did in November 1982 when Socialist leader George Fernandes, Thackeray, and Pawar intervened and addressed a rally in Dadar’s Shivaji Park in November 1982 to try to end the textile mill strike that had started earlier that year.

Pawar writes in his memoirs how the three could do little as it was already too late.

Has Pawar got his timing right on this occasion to save his party and unify the Opposition as the final legacy of his political career?