The contours of unfriendliness between them have seldom been a secret. Today, though, the Nationalist Congress Party seemed keen to draw a clear battle line with Anna Hazare. The trigger: the septuagenarian Gandhian’s justification of last month’s attack by a youth on union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is leader of the NCP that is in the ruling alliance in Maharasthra as well.
Adding fuel to the fire came Hazare’s statement that Pawar has been giving protection to corrupt individual over the years. The NCP now plans to launch a state-wide agitation against the 74-year-old anti-graft activist.
In fact, NCP today dropped sufficient hint that the November 24 attack on Pawar in Delhi may have instigated by Team Anna which is headed by Hazare. The episode, the party says, was “timed well” ahead of Hazare’s plans to observe a symbolic fast on December 11 in the national capital and later go on an indefinite strike from December 27 to press for a Jan Lok Pal bill.
A deep animosity between Pawar and Hazare, which is part of their native Maharashtra’s political lore, is long-standing — be it on the issue of land acquisition, promotion of the private sector (including lending support to the Lavasa hill city project) and aiding the state’s all-important sugar and cooperative industry. Only this April had Pawar, four years younger to Hazare, yet again expressed his disgust with the veteran social worker resigned from the the group of ministers engaged in drafting the anti-corruption bill.
This time, though, the otherwise pacifist’s move to justify the Delhi attack on Pawar has given the NCP an opportunity to step up its campaign against Hazare, who lives in Ralegan Siddhi village of the state’s west-central Ahmednagar district.
State NCP president Madhukar Pichad deplored Hazare’s comment, saying that his party would soon chalk out a comprehensive strategy to take on the activist. “Hazare’s comment that Pawar has shielded corrupt for long was uncalled-for. We will give him a befitting reply,” he said.
On his part, Pawar issued a statement late in the evening, saying he had no objection to Hazare expressing his thoughts regarding him or his actions. “However, in the event of any further assault on me, the source for its instigation would now be amply clear,” he said. “In the recent past, too, Hazare has supported physical attacks on me. He has given a new definition to the concept of Gandhism and non-violence.”
On Hazare’s referrence to the report of the Justice P B Sawant Commission, Pawar said the report had no direct or indirect reference to him. “Moreover, all the three ministers indicted in the report have already tendered their resignation. It is ironical, though, that no action seems to have been taken on issue of mal-administration and corruption mentioned in the panel’s report regarding Hazare, he added.
The NCP chief urged his supporters to remain calm. “While I am hurt at the vituperative views expressed by Hazare, I would still appeal to all that his views or utterances should be addressed maturely and with restraint,” he said. “No one should indulge in any sort of retaliatory violence of word or deed.”
NCP legislator Jitendra Awhad, a close confidant of Pawar, said the party would “not sit quiet”, but spearhead a movement against Hazare in a democratic manner. “By defending the attack on Pawar, Hazare has shown his true colours,” he added.
