Pawar family watch brand

“We were afraid it is really hurtful that priority is given to political ambitions over family,” said Vitthal Maniar, 86, sitting in his office on the busy Nana Peth lane in Maharashtra’s Pune. Saheb Maniar’s college friend and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, who turned 84 on December 12, 2024. Maniar fought and lost the college election against Sharad, but gained a lifelong friend. The families are so close that Ajit Pawar, 65, Sharad’s nephew, calls him Kaka (father’s brother).

Maniar talks about the “political ambitions” of Ajit, who is now the Deputy Chief Minister for the sixth term. By mid-2023, Ajit had split with the centrist Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), co-founded by Sharad in 1999, taking with it a majority of MPs. He then joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, partners in the ruling Mahayuti alliance.

Since its formation, the NCP has never formed a government alone, although it has always been part of the ruling coalition in the State. It became one of the strongest regional powers, an umbrella for sugar barons and regional satraps from resource-rich western Maharashtra. Sharad has been Chief Minister four times and his family owns sugar businesses, other agricultural industries, realty, and media.

Today, the Pawar regime is in flux, with six members of the family in active politics and the third generation determined to prove its mettle. While the ongoing rivalry between uncle and nephew has captured national attention, at the heart of the family turmoil is the question of who will inherit Sharad’s sixteen-year political legacy.

In the votes

Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Ajit’s party was given the name NCP and the ‘clock’ symbol. Sharad’s party, the NCP (SP), was treated as a party and given the symbol of ‘trumpeter’ (tie bajavnara maanus in Marathi). Although this issue did not defeat me, it was a plague on cocoa. Days after his loyal aides abandoned him, reporters asked Sharad who was with him. He just raised his own hand and smiled.

In the 288-seat Assembly elections in November 2024, the NCP won 41 of the 56 seats it contested, while the NCP (SP) won only 10 of the 86 it contested. For the first time in politics, Sharad, who has never lost an election, did not speak to the arbitrators on the day the results were announced.

The next day, at a press conference he said the results were “unexpected”, but he will not resign from politics. “This is a call that my colleagues and I will accept. There was a clear division of votes in this election,” he said in Karad, where he goes every year to pay tribute to his political mentor and the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Yashwantrao Chavan, on the day he died. “People say that spending money during the election was unprecedented,” he said.

“Although he will not fight to vote, that person will never retire from politics. You eat, drink, and breathe politics. He likes to walk among people. It works like a tonic for him,” said his daughter Supriya Sule, 55, a four-time MP from Baramati. A Hindu‘s’s ‘Poll Arena’, a political conference held days before the Assembly elections, confirming his father’s passion for public life.

Power of Pawar

Sharad was one of 10 children and was born in Baramati, which became his political and business base. Here, among sugarcane farmers, wheat farmers, and grape traders, among the green fields of the villages and pockets of the city, he established sugar cooperatives, research and educational institutions, and cultural institutions. Today, Baramati’s Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation has more than 400 companies.

Here, people talk a lot about the octogenarian, but there is a muted conversation about Ajit’s career. “The people of the Kingdom have decided— Tai (Delete) of the Center and Duck (Ajit) to the Government,” said a person who asked not to be named.

“Sharad flexed his muscles against an established politician in the 1960s, which was an unthinkable move at that time,” said Satish Khomne, 72, a former NCP (SP) politician since the 1970s. “He brought organizations from other countries to improve farming and irrigation; he brought investment companies. He showed Baramati what development means. He was the one who brought in Ajit. But even today we know, Saheb he has an eye on Baramati,” he said.

A former Agriculture Minister and Defense Minister, and a leader with multi-party reach, Sharad is a pillar of the INDIA bloc, a group of 30 odd parties formed to fight the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections. His followers say he has the ability to bring together unlikely leaders. “His friendship with political opponents and adversaries is legendary…. His communication skills are amazing and those skills are much needed when politics gets dirty, as it always does,” Congress leader Sonia Gandhi Sharad said on her 75th birthday celebrations in 2015. .

Sharad instituted reservation for women in local government bodies in Maharashtra. It was during his time as Minister of Defense that women were inducted into non-medical roles in the Armed Forces. However, he has been linked to allegations of fraud and controversies, both as a Minister and as the head of a cricket team.

Congress leader KV Thomas in 2014 called him a “criminal” for rebelling against Sonia in 1999. Such was the case with Shiv Sena leader Anant Geete in 2021. It was only poetic justice, critics say, that his nephew betrayed him to join the party. The BJP. Many likened Ajit’s move to that of his uncle in 1978, when Sharad rebelled and overthrew Vasantdada Patil’s government to become the youngest Chief Minister in 38 years.

In 2019, when Ajit joined hands with the BJP for the first time, Shalini Patil, Vasantdada’s wife, said, “The way Sharad behaved with Vasantrao, he must have had the same experience in his family when Ajit joined the BJP.”

It’s a matter of succession

In the Lok Sabha polls, Ajit’s wife, Sunetra Pawar, contested against her cousin Sule in Baramati. Shrinivas Pawar, Ajit’s elder brother, who heads the Sharayu Group of companies in Mumbai, which deals in agribusiness, car sales, security solutions, among others, has led to the social displeasure of this family.

During the election campaign, Ajit appealed to Baramati voters to vote for ‘Pawar’, apparently referring to his cousin ‘Sule’ and in favor of his wife. Sharad responded by saying, “There is nothing wrong in seeking votes for Pawar. There is the first Pawar and this one from outside.” In the end, Sule won.

“I feel bad that I have to compete with a family member. No matter what happens, the truth is that we were family, we are family, and we will continue to be family,” said Sunetra.

During the election, some of the Pawars had campaigned for Sule. He maintains that this is a war of ideas and that he will contest because of his work in the district.

Ajit later called his wife’s opposition to Sule a “mistake” and urged Sharad not to field a family member against him as a candidate from Baramati in the Assembly polls. Sharad did just that and fielded Yugendra Pawar, 32, son of Shrinivas, who lost by more than 1 lakh votes to his uncle. Ajit was back as an MP for the eighth time.

During the Assembly elections, the entire family campaigned for Ajit, Sharad’s wife who was involved in politics, Pratibha, nicknamed Kaki, also voted in favor of Yugendra. In the lasting image, Pratibha, along with Sule’s 20-year-old daughter Revati, are seen standing in front of a banner that reads: “Mhatara jithe jaatay, changbhala hotay Where the old man goes, the winds change).

While campaigning for the elections, Yugendra had said about his uncle Ajit: “Today, he has left Pawar Sahebhis opinion, and take the team with him. But people love Pawar Saheb.“

The rise of Ajit

Things were different even during Deepavali, when at least 50 members of the Pawar family used to celebrate together in Baramati. This time, the festival came at a time of campaigning for the top election. For the first time, the family had two separate celebrations in Baramati, one at Govindbaug, where Sharad and most of the family gathered; the other at Katewadi, where Ajit celebrated and met people at a ‘Janata darbar’.

A few months before the Lok Sabha elections, Ajit while addressing the NCP office bearers in Mumbai said that the elders should stay at home and let the next generation handle the affairs. Within months, Sharad’s NCP (SP) had contested 10 Lok Sabha seats and won eight. Luck was reversed in the Assembly elections, though the NCP (SP)’s vote share was greater than the NCP.

Naresh Arora, who runs Design Boxed, a poll management company, says it was a challenge to manage Ajit’s image. “Another opinion was that he was arrogant, disrespectful. That needed to be changed. He is actually a very happy person, but he has never connected with people that way. So we created a campaign about this,” he said.

The party organized the Jan Samman Yatra, which boosted the morale of NCP workers and put Ajit among its voters. “He was always considered as someone who sits in Mantralaya (State Secretariat) and gets a job. I Yatra he made him meet people. People loved that he cracked jokes and smiled. This was different from the image of a person who has been working since morning, being annoyed by the officials who did not deliver, reprimanding them in public,” said Arora.

Kiran Gujar, who was partially managing Ajit’s campaign, said during the election, referring to a stack of papers, local manifestos, and booth management sheets in Baramati: “There are more than 1.5 lakh rural voters and 1 lakh urban voters in Baramati. There are 386 booths in 117 villages. We have a booth of 11,760 karyakartas (workers) who are working diligently in this election.”

Surrounded by team members asking directions, Gujar said that is what unites them the most Duckthe job spoke for itself.

On December 12, Ajit, Sunetra, and their senior NCP colleagues visited Sharad’s residence in Delhi to wish him on his 84th birthday. They were greeted by Sule, who almost hugged Sunetra and kissed her nephew Parth with love. At that time, the Mahayuti government could not decide on the Cabinet about 20 days after the final mandate. Soon, Ajit was given the post of Deputy CM.

Several leaders close to members of the Pawar family say it will be difficult for them to end their differences soon. “It doesn’t look like Sharad will support the BJP,” the leader said. However, one leader says, “Pawars are like water. You can try to beat the water with a stick, but you won’t be able to separate it.”