The kingmaker from Maharashtra

Pawar’s death will likely cause a tectonic shift in the state’s politics

- ADITI PHADNIS

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar (66), Ajit dada to his supporters, lost his life on Wednesday in what heconsidered tobe the line of duty — engaged in campaigning at the lowest rung of electoral politics.

This, and his understanding of politics and its mechanisms, was his biggest strength and his primary vocation.

Ajit Pawar was the nephew of political titan and four-time Maharashtra chief minister, Sharad Pawar. His father was Sharad Pawar’s brother. In the Indian context, this was a close family relationship — something that defined the strategies and politics of Sharad Pawar and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which was always “family foremost”. Ajit Pawar’s first major electoral success came in 1991, when he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baramati. He was 32. He vacated the seat within six months after Sharad Pawar joined the PV Narasimha Rao governmentinthe Centre as defence minister, enabling his uncle to contest the seat ina byelection.

Ajit Pawar himself moved to state politics, winning the Baramati Assembly seat. When in 1999, Sharad Pawar launched the NCP against the Congress and the “foreign origins” of Sonia Gandhi, it was ‘Ajit Pawar who set up the scaffolding for the new party, especially in western Maharashtra. He did this by leveraging his hold on cooperatives and local institutions, a byzantine empire of politicsin the region.