The perpetual threat of defection lurking over the unlikely coalition of Congress-NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena gave jitters to the leaders yet again but the political storm blew over on Tuesday without inflicting any injury.
While top leaders of all three parties were almost reconciled to another ugly episode of defection, this time from the NCP, main protagonist Ajit Pawar publicly asserted that he won’t join the BJP. The relief came after Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule gave credence to the speculation by saying she expected two political explosions in the coming days — one in Delhi and the other in Maharashtra.
While the Delhi explosion was interpreted as the possible disqualification of the Eknath Shinde group of MLAs by the Supreme Court, the subsequent explosion would have been another betrayal by Ajit Pawar to prop up a BJP-led coalition in Maharashtra. The hearing in the Supreme Court on the defection in Maharashtra leading to the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray government has been completed and the judgment is awaited.
What led to fresh suspicions about Ajit Pawar's intentions was the buzz in political circles that some MLAs were in touch with the BJP. A Congress leader told The Telegraph from Mumbai: "We were almost certain that something is brewing and some NCP MLAs privately conceded they were approached by the BJP. They did not rule out another revolt by Ajit Pawar. There seemed to be some serious differences in the Pawar family, too.”
Ajit Pawar is Sharad Pawar’s nephew. While the senior Pawar stirred the pot by speaking against Rahul Gandhi’s attack on industrialist Gautam Adani, the junior Pawar’s betrayal plot returned to the rumour mills almost automatically. Deepening the sense of dismay was the talk between Pawar and Thackeray last Sunday where both the leaders acknowledged the possibility of fresh episodes of defections.
Thackeray aide Sanjay Raut had confirmed that Sharad Pawar expressed fears about central agencies pressuring his MLAs. “At the meeting with Thackeray, Pawar had certainly spoken of pressure and threats being applied by central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, CBI and police to split the NCP as was done to Shiv Sena. But Pawar had said that while some people may leave the party owing to this pressure, that would be their individual decision. The NCP president has clearly said that the NCP as a party will never leave the MVA alliance,” Raut had said.
But Ajit Pawar, who had jolted the coalition at the time of birth by taking the oath with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis, finally denied any such plan. "Should I now write on a stamp paper? I'm in NCP... will remain in NCP,” he asserted.
"I want to tell NCP workers that all these reports about NCP MLAs in touch with the BJP are being spread to divert the attention from real issues. We held a rally in Nagpur... we were all together... what you saw regarding the signatures of 40 MLAs was about them remaining with the NCP," he claimed.
The positive fallout of this new conspiracy was the Congress outreach to Thackeray. Instead of relying on Pawars to negotiate with Sena, Rahul's key aide K.C. Venugopal visited Thackeray and had a detailed discussion on strengthening the alliance. Rahul too is expected to meet Thackeray, bolstering the faith among Congress leaders that the high command wanted to remain invested in this coalition.
