Presently, Maharashtra politics has seen its new low; there are unnecessary commotions and endless attacks from the opposition party. Maharashtra’s political corridors collude with vengeance and revenge. BJP never imagined that they would lose power in such disgrace. Mumbai is considered the financial capital and most powerful among all other metropolitans. One who rules here is the king.
Pawar has kept BJP out of power and made them sit in opposition. In Maharashtra, Pawar’s powers know no bounds. This man is the unnamed king of state politics. He is the kingmaker behind the scenes. Nobody can match the political acumen of Sharad Pawar in whole Indian politics, not even the one they call Chanakya these days.
This is the reason the opposition and its IT cell are hellbent on circulating obnoxious WhatsApp forwards against him to misinform people about his corruption and alleged Dawood links. The social media trolls are not only cruel, but they are mean because their only focus is on mindless attacks to humiliate veteran leaders. BJP might think they and their newly found loudspeaker can really gain something by attacking Pawar, then they should know Pawar’s NCP has certain fixed and assured seats in Maharashtra and Pawar is popular among them.
Pawar is a proven wheeler-dealer in Maharashtra politics. He can foresee the political changes. Devendra cannot afford to stay out of power because there is a lot of internal pressure on him. His own party workers blame him for his arrogance that forced Shiv Sena to part in its ways. Since then, the BJP IT cell across India is assigned to ransack Maha Vikas Aghadi and its leaders. Party funds fueled these IT Cells with the basic raw material of its ideology. All the BJP karyakartas, whether they are IT cell workers District level committees or Party General Secretary, adhere more to the ideology of divide.
In such circumstances, projecting Shiv Sena as a party that has shed Balasaheb’s Hindutva and Congress-NCP as Muslim sympathiser is easy marketing. As a tool for this mission, they pitched in Hanuman Chalisa and hired Ranas’ and Raj Thackeray to spread the word. Both created ruckus but one landed in jail and another one was not taken seriously but his own people. So, this stunt also reached cold storage. So, the next agenda is to prove Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar have underworld links and money laundering, so far CBI, ED and IT departments could not stand much on their claims but such attacks are bound to continue till the 2024 elections.
Sharad Pawar’s leaders are devoted to him and equally the Shiv Sainiks are loyal to Uddhav Thackeray. MLAs on the fence are aware of Pawar’s political acumen. Remember that many Congresses and NCP leaders defected to BJP before assembly elections in 2019. Pawar made sure that most of them lose the election. Even if they have won, Pawar’s brainchild MVA has kept them out of power and also makes their return journey more complicated. As of now, Sharad Pawar holds the cards of King making in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena is too much dependent on him for their future ahead. Without his cooperation, there can be no government in Maharashtra. All eyes of opposition are on him and that is the reason he is the most trolled minister on social media. Sharad Pawar is the central figure in Maharashtra politics. He knows the politics of Maharashtra to the microscopic details. He can turn the table to his desires.
There is really no one like Sharad Pawar – whether in the art of politics or in the knowledge of Maharashtra. I am privileged to hear him speak on his journey as a journalist with Sakal newspaper. People might not know the true side of him, but I could see it. I recently went to see Mr Pawar. There were hundreds of people queuing up to meet him. From morning 7 am till noon he was continuously greeting various visitors. I thought he might be disturbed by ongoing political attacks from the opposition. But to my surprise, he was very calm and at peace while greeting everyone. A seasoned and veteran politician without him Maharashtra politics would be orphaned. He gave us time to talk about various things, there I discovered that journalist in him.
Sharad Pawar is among the few politicians in India who is known across the nation. He has been there, done that, and seen it all: in Mumbai and Delhi, within and outside the Congress, with or without the Gandhi’s, in his own small party or regional coalitions. Pawar, the politician, always believed to be on his terms, from the grassroots to the peaks of Power. One can understand the political rivalry, and anger of the opposition, but the people of Maharashtra fail to understand why BJP is hyperactive now and why are they randomly attacking the veteran?
Let me remind you, Prime Minister Narendra Modi poured praises on Pawar, claiming that even if they are from two different parties and have two different ideologies, their aim is one—India’s progress, when India is progressing even Maharashtra is also progressing under Sharad Pawar’s guidance. PM Modi hailed Sharad Pawar’s positive politics frequently by calling him his political guru, maybe this was the reason the BJP government gave Padma Vibhushan to Sharad Pawar. Why are state BJP leaders now contradicting their own leader lords?
