Battling a split in the party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar has decided to launch his statewide tour on August 16.
Pawar faced the biggest challenge in his political career when his nephew Ajit Pawar recently raised a banner of rebellion and joined the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government as deputy chief minister. Eight other senior NCP leaders followed him and joined the state cabinet as ministers.
The revolt by Ajit prompted a show of strength on July 5 by both groups - Pawar Senior loyalists and those who sided with Ajit. As of now Ajit has claimed support of 40 of the 53 NCP legislators and two MPs.
Pawar had said on July 5 that he will rebuild the party and fight the battle in people’s court instead of a protracted legal battle. He had then announced that he would start his statewide campaign to take on the rebels by holding rallies in their constituencies and strongholds. Accordingly, the first rally was organized at Yeola in Nashik district, the constituency of veteran NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who has now joined hands with Ajit.
Then Pawar was scheduled to travel to Ambegaon in Pune district and the constituency of Dilip Walse-Patil, another NCP veteran who is also among the party's founding members. But that tour didn’t happen because of heavy rainfall in the region.
When the monsoon session of the state legislature started on July 17, Ajit surprised everyone by visiting his uncle on the very first day to seek his blessings. The next day he took all his supporter legislators to meet Pawar Senior. These two meetings raised suspicions whether the latter had decided to support his nephew. However, the NCP supremo denied it and went to Bengaluru to attend the meeting of opposition parties.
Meanwhile, Jayant Patil, the state president of Pawar loyalist NCP faction, took the loyalist legislators for a dinner at a five-star hotel in south Mumbai. There he was questioned about the ambivalence by the party on Ajit and other leaders who left with him. Patil told the gathering that there was no ambiguity on the issue of joining NDA and Pawar Senior was very clear that his NCP was very much part of opposition unity.
During this meeting, a suggestion came up that there was an urgent need to clear doubts in the minds of thousands of party workers across the state and Pawar Senior was the best person to do it. Following this, a statewide tour was mooted.
There are couple of options on the table for the NCP supremo's tour. Either, he will focus on the assembly constituencies of rebel legislators and hold rallies in each of them. Another option is to start the tour from temple town of Tuljapur after seeking blessings of Goddess Tulja Bhavani, one of the most revered deities of Maharashtra.
Nitty-gritty of both the plans are being worked out and they will be submitted before Pawar Senior soon for his final approval. Thus it seems that the ageing Maratha leader is preparing to go all out against his nephew in order to rebuild the party.
