NCP's Struggle For Survival

With Pawar past his prime, the NCP’s ideological incoherence and lack of next-generation leadership make it an easy target for the saffron camp.

- Dnyanesh Jathar

Sharad Pawar rarely gets angry at news conferences. But, on August 30, the founding president of the Nationalist Congress Party lost his cool during a media interaction at Srirampur in Ahmednagar district when asked about the decision by senior partyman Padmasinh Patil and his legislator son Rana Jagjitsinh to join the BJP. A visibly upset Pawar asked the journalist to leave and threatened to walk out if he stayed.

The NCP supremo’s anger was understandable. Pawar’s nephew Ajit is married to Patil’s sister. And, Patil had been a Pawar loyalist even before the marriage. He had served as home minister when Pawar headed the Congress government in Maharashtra in the early 1990s. When Pawar launched the NCP in 1999, Patil was one of the first prominent Congress leaders to join him. When Patil once got embroiled in a murder case, Pawar reportedly sought the intervention of the Congress high command to prevail upon the then Union home minister and stop his arrest. No wonder the defection has hit him hard.

When the Lok Sabha election results were announced in May, the NCP appeared to be in a much better position compared with its ally, the Congress. While the Congress won just one seat, the NCP had managed four, creating an impression that it was in a better shape to fight the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. Recent developments in Maharashtra, however, indicate that the NCP is facing a major crisis, losing cadres and leaders almost on a daily basis. The Patils are the latest in the list, as they joined the BJP on September 1, along with former Kolhapur MP Dhananjay Mahadik, in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.