PAWAR TO BE LEFT IN THE LURCH?

BE LEFT IN THE LURCH?
By S R Ramanujan

Maharashtra strongman and Nationalist Congress Party chief, Sharad Pawar, who sees Third Front as a force to reckon with, is all set to unleash the cat among the UPA pigeons. He is not going to be content with that. An unscrupulous politician that he is, Pawar is bent upon breaking the UPA, NDA and the latest edition of Third Front to realise his ambition. Whether he succeeds or not, he is going to make an effort to wean away Samajwadi Party from UPA, Shiv Sena from the NDA and whatever possible from the Third Front.
It is difficult to say whether Pawar’s party would be able to get atleast 20 Lok Sabha seats in the coming polls on its own, but never mind, it doesn’t stop his ambitions to the top post in the country. Everyone is entitled to his ambitions. But such ambition should be based on certain realities. A paraplegic cannot nurse an ambition to climb the Mount Everest. Well, one may say politics is all about immense possibilities. May be. Then, it cannot be divorced from ground realities and should not defy conventional wisdom, Costitutional dictum and political ethics. And sadly, Pawar wants to play the most dangerous parochial card. He says that the people of his state want a Maharashtrian Prime Minister. Is this not most abominable divisive politics? Why do we blame others of such a sin? Did he conduct his own survey to know the pulse of Maharashstrians? Look at the irony. His party calls itself as “nationalist” and he plays the worst possible regional card.
Let us look at the basics first. How do we elect a Prime Minister? We have a Parliamentary democracy and not Presidential democracy. A party that enjoys a majority in the House is entitled to elect its Prime Minister and such a candidate should enjoy the confidence of the MPs of his/her party. No one looks at his caste, religion or linguistic background. What is important is whether such a leader is capable enough to do justice to his post, never mind whichever state he hails from.
Pawar is trying to set a dangerous precedent by linking the post of chief executive of the country to his linguistic/regional background. If we extend this logic, why should we deny this privilege to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal etc. Does this not open the flood gates for people of those states to make a similar demand? Will it not amount to a mockery of our Constitution? As it is, the regional parties are slowly making the national parties irrelevant which, certainly is not in the interest of the nation. Pawar is adding another dirty dimension to the country’s political ethos.
Whoever knows Pawar’s style of politics would vouch for his strange, mysterious and inscrutable political conduct. He can sup with the devil if it can serve his political purpose. If he is now playing the Marathi manoos card, one does not know whether it is just a ploy to wean away Shiv Sena from the BJP atleast after the polls. Shiv Sena, Pawar knows, is quite vulnerable and will become an easy prey for such parochial appeal. If it is not to upset the NDA alliance, he must have other political calculations to stitch up numbers.
Pawar has already declared his penchant for the Third Front and kept an option open in case he needs numbers. But how many from the Third Front will go with him is a moot question. He is going to be greatly disappointed if he counts on the Third Front to realise his ambitions. Besides the four Left parties, Third Front has TDP, TRS, JD(S) and an unknown party of Bhajan Lal and his son who may not get even a single seat. The major regional parties – BSP and AIADMK – are fence sitters till now. There are reports that Telengana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekara Rao might get out of the “Mahakutami” after the polls in case the NDA is able to pip the post since the latter has promised Telengana statehood within 100 days of coming to power. Interestingly, the Left is split in Kerala and the CPI-M’s big brother attitude has alienated the CPI and both the parties are likely to field candidates in all the 20 seats in Kerala. Revolutionary Socialist Party, one of the partners of the Front did not attend the meeting in Karnataka. So, within the Third Front, Left is in disarray and if the Left parties get 40 seats in the 15th Lok Sabha, they must thank Marx or Lenin.
Can Pawar depend on Mayawati? Certainly not. Mayawati, inspite of giving a miss to the launch function of the Front in Karnataka, has invited the Third Front members for a dinner on Sunday to find out whether they would declare her as the Front’s Prime Ministerial nominee. Probably, she wants this as a pre-condition to formally join the Third Front. All available indications are that the Front partners may oblige her as her party is likely to emerge as the single largest party after UPA and NDA. And for the Left, she will be a better bet as it will cut Amar Singh, a betrayer of the Left, to size. Further, the Left can take the credit for projecting a “Dalit beti” as the country’s first Prime Minister from the oppressed section of society. It will be a double whammy – a woman and a dalit! Most important of all, the Left can continue to exert influence at the Centre as it did for nearly four and a half years with the UPA and bark and bite whenever it likes.
This possible development is also likely to drive away the AIADMK supemo J Jayalalithaa, another aspirant for the top post, from the Front and we need not be surprised if she ties up with the NDA as UPA continues to harbour Karunanidhi despite his shrinking stock. Even her alliance with the Left in Tamil Nadu is an uneasy one and it may go bust anyday.
So, Pawar will be left with only Samajwadi Party which is the only party, so far, to have extended its support to the ambitions of NCP chief. But how many seats SP will have in its kitty to extend formidable support to Pawar? If UPA emerges stronger than what is was in 2004, a remote possibility of course, why should the SP desert the UPA and go behind Pawar? It makes no political sense.
Only two regional parties are left out in this exercise. They are the TDP and Biju Janata Dal. Both these parties are occupying anti-Congress space in their respective states and therefore, they cannot go with the UPA. They will have no alternative except to sail with the Third Front and strengthen the hands of Mayawati.
Where does this leave Pawar? In the lurch?