“MAKE MISTAKES of ambition, and not mistakes of sloth,” wrote Niccolo Machiavelli. Ajit Pawar follows the maxim to the hilt.
Pawar has long been openly pursuing his dream of becoming Maharashtra chief minister. Perhaps the closest he came to achieving it was in 2019, when he split the Nationalist Congress Party to form a coalition government with the BJP and the Shiv Sena. His uncle, Nationalist Congress Party national president Sharad Pawar, was against joining hands with the Sena. So he began pulling strings, and the younger Pawar’s decision soon revealed itself as a mistake of ambition.
No one can accuse Pawar of being a sloth, though. A leader with deep grassroots links and a formidable network of friends across the political spectrum, he has long been the NCP’s organisational lynchpin. In July this year, ambition again prompted Pawar to cock a snook at his uncle. He split the party and joined the BJP-Sena coalition as deputy chief minister―once again reaching a step closer to the chair of his dreams.
“I was sworn in as deputy chief minister five times―a record,” he said at the first public meeting after engineering the split in the NCP. “But has the vehicle stopped there? I feel I want to lead the state. I have things I want to implement, and for that, becoming CM is essential.”
The need to hold the coalition together has the BJP being rather diplomatic about Pawar’s jockeying. “Whenever the appropriate time comes, we shall have Ajit Pawar as chief minister for a complete five years,” said Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who has his own ambitions to reclaim the top job.
For his part, the elder Pawar is certain that his nephew has made another mistake. “[Becoming chief minister] will remain as his dream,” he recently said. “It will never happen in reality.”