Ajit Pawar Senior NCP Leader ‘melts into thin air”?
Ajit Pawar Senior NCP Leader
‘melts into thin air”?
News comes to the fore that the senior leader of NCP Ajit Pawar ‘melt into thin air’ on Saturday citing ‘ill health’ reasons and resting on doctor’s
advice. His abrupt disappearance led to speculations by the media.
This however irked Ajit who pulled up the media personnel for speculating over his whereabouts.
Given that in Ajit and his disappearances do have political context, given the past
Notably, Friday evening witnessed intense speculation in political circles, as senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar suddenly went off the grid
The NCP leader was expected to attend a programme in Pune but gave it a miss and remained inaccessible on his cell phone, leading to much conjecture.
His absence immediately emerged as a talking point as over the last couple of months speculations were rife that Maharashtra’s BJP leadership is in touch with Ajit as well as a few Congress legislators, should it need to resort to Plan B in case of an adverse verdict in the Supreme Court on the Shiv Sena split and the legitimacy of Eknath Shinde’s government.
In 2019, just as his uncle, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, was putting together an alliance of three parties to form a government in Maharashtra after the BJP-Shiv Sena parted ways, Ajit disappeared with a bunch of MLAs. He appeared the next day at Raj Bhavan to take oath as deputy chief minister with Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister in an early morning swearing-in ceremony.
The government was transitory
as Ajit’s attempt to split the NCP failed, but his disappearance and the early morning swearing-in became part of the state’s political history.
Even before that, Ajit had done the disappearing act: in September 2019, the same day when Sharad Pawar preferred to visit the Enforcement Directorate office himself after his name figured in a case related to alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank. While Pawar was prepping to go to the ED office he was requested by the city police chief to drop the plan. The same evening Ajit vanished into thin air giving way to speculation that he was on way to the BJP. He appeared later and told the media that he was pained by the politics and the way they were being targeted.
So, could it be taken for granted that his recent disappearance an indication of things to come?
At the public function he heaped praises on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership terming it
“the magic of PM Modi”.
He also gave his verdict on electronic voting machines (EVMs), articulating that there was no truth in the allegations that EVMs could be hacked. Significantly, he contradicted his party’s chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase who, on Saturday, issued a press release pointing out that Bangladesh had ceased with the use of EVMs and that political parties and civil society had doubts on EVMs in India.
It is learnt that the Anti-corruption activist Anjali Damania on Friday posted a picture of the Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar swearing-in of 2019 with remarks ‘Nauseating politics’ adding Fadnavis’ 2019 election tagline, ‘Mi punha yein (I will be back)’.
As announced by him earlier, chief minister Eknath Shinde visited Ayodhya with his MLAs and MPs on Sunday to seek the blessings of Lord Ram. In addition to the Ram temple issue, Ayodhya and Uttar Pradesh would probably have entered the history of Maharashtra’s politics in a different context. As per Thackeray faction leaders, Shinde and his colleagues had planned a coup during Aaditya Thackeray’s Ayodhya visit in June 2022. The MLAs would accompany Aaditya to Ayodhya but would not return with him, and Shinde would announce his rebellion from the temple town. It would have been a perfect setting for the reason he would give for splitting the Sena—Hindutva. However, it was dropped later, as the Sena leadership got suspicious that something was brewing in the party. The coup happened anyway five days later on June 20 during the election to the legislative council, with most of the Shiv Sena MLAs led by Shinde making their way to Surat.
Although it was not planned earlier, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis decided to join chief minister Shinde in Ayodhya on Sunday. As per their plan, Shinde was to be accompanied by his ministers, MLAs and MPs. BJP leader and Shinde’s cabinet colleague Girish Mahajan was to accompany him. Fadnavis, who was scheduled to go to Delhi to attend the party’s central election committee meeting, made a detour to Ayodhya to visit the Ram temple and the new temple construction site with Shinde and later proceeded to the national capital.
News input KV Raman
