MUMBAI, 19 October 2007 — During the past few days, political parties in Maharashtra appear to be inching toward instability. To begin with Satish Pradhan, a prominent Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, who had quit the Shiv Sena to join the NCP two years ago, quit the NCP on Wednesday amid speculations that he was all set to rejoin the Sena and contest on its ticket from the Thane district in the next Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) elections.
Sena leaders in Thane are however not enthusiastic about Pradhan returning to Sena stating that he had never maintained good relations with party activists when he was the Sena member of Parliament. “Pradhan is just not a mass leader that the Sena needs badly,” said a senior Sena leader.
Congress dissidents led by State Revenue Minister Narayan Rane are persisting with their demand for the removal of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The dissidents have told the Congress high command that failure to remove Deshmukh would result in a mass exodus of Congress legislators to the NCP.
Internal fighting in the state BJP has also come out in the open. State BJP President Nitin Gadkari does not see eye-to-eye with national BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde, who is concentrating on his backward Banjara caste to become leader in the BJP. This is similar to Bhujbal who is exploiting his Mali caste backward class background.
Another prominent NCP leader and Public Works Department minister has sent signals of deserting the NCP, which has forced NCP President Sharad Pawar to swing into damage control exercise. Pawar has taken a serious view of a veiled attack by Bhujbal against his own party last Sunday and did not like Bhujbal sharing platform with Pawar’s beta-noire Gopinath Munde of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Pawar is disturbed and angry with Bhujbal for his public outbursts against the NCP and lavishing praise for the Shiv Sena. During the last three days, Pawar and his close party confidants have held meetings in Pune drawing strategy to prevent Bhujbal from triggering a “Marathas versus Other Backward Classes” (OBC) caste war within the NCP.
The NCP president was forced to opt for a damage-control exercise after he talked tough and gave his piece of mind to senior NCP leaders for ignoring Bhujbal and Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, senior party leader, and not taking them into confidence on party matters. Some top NCP leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the party is already besieged with internal squabbles in six districts of the state, for which Pawar had set up a committee to resolve the situation.
Commenting on the outbursts of Bhujbal, NCP state president Arun Gujrathi denied that the criticism by Bhujbal was an attack on the party president Pawar or the NCP and said that Bhujbal was the most senior and valued OBC leader in the party, and had played a key role in the formation of the NCP.
It is not only Pawar but Congress leaders too who are drawing political conjectures from Bhujbal-Munde sharing a platform together at a public function, with political analysts drawing a conclusion that it was political networking among OBC leaders to consolidate base and keep their political masters on tenterhooks.
Congress leader Hussain Dalwai termed the latest development in the NCP as evidence of Bhujbal’s efforts to assert himself, especially after the NCP sidelined the backward leader. “There is a lesson for the Congress from this,” Dalwai said.
A senior BJP leader said that sharing the platform with Bhujbal has led to the impression that Munde has signaled to NCP President Sharad Pawar that the BJP’s doors were open for Bhujbal. Munde on the other hand is also trying to position himself as the main OBC leader across party lines. Surprisingly, neither Bhujbal nor Munde have indicated or talked of distancing themselves from their present parties.
