Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy

It's party time for Sharad Pawar, finally

It's a strange sight to see that presidents of various political parties do not want to face an election for the office they hold, preferring to be appointed through consensus, never mind if it militates against the concept of democracy.

It is an even more strange sight to see the reluctant fighter from Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, finally taking the plunge and facing up to Congress president Sitaram Kesri. Given the man's background, it is unlikely he will fight a fight he knows he will lose. So what gives him the confidence that he can pull it off this time?

That meeting with Sonia Gandhi, the power behind the throne in the Congress, earlier this week obviously had something to do with his subsequent decision to enter the fray. More than seeking her blessings, his purpose in meeting her was to find out if she had plans of occupying the party post too, in which case he knows that his will be the only vote in his favour. With Kesri, who knows, the disillusionment following his brinkmanship with the United Front government may push his partymen to Pawar. Or so Pawar calculates.

Yet, is Pawar electable as the party president? His own supporters from the western region will surely back him, as will the supporters of former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao who are still sore at the undignified manner in which he has been treated by the man who succeeded him as party president. Possibly, the south may also put in their lot with Pawar, not because they like him but because they detest Kesri. The north is one area where Pawar's magic needs furbishing, and this is the area that will ultimately swing the vote either way. With another stormy petrel, Rajesh Pilot, in the fray, it is possible that there could be a division in the votes, but whom that will benefit is anybody's guess at this stage.

But Kesri has not been given such a fright by anyone ever in his career. The Congress's history of consensus choice obviously led him believe that his too would be a shoo-in, unfortunately for him he is heading the party when its electoral fortunes are at their lowest, and although his own lack of charisma and dynamism had little to do with it, what the Congressmen are exercised over is that in case of an election within the next year -- which is a strong possibility -- they don't' expect the party to make any significant strides under his leadership.

And it is this fear that Pawar is playing up on, as is Rajesh Pilot. Kesri's best bet, of course, would be to pray that these two end up neutralising each other.

Pawar's statements since filing his nominations for the party post are very significant. He has attacked the leadership, which means that he is willing to take on Kesri openly, without being mealy-mouthed about it as in the past. This is a total change from the cagey responses he was full of earlier. Also, his quote that both he and Kesri would step aside if Sonia Gandhi were to decide to take over the post, that is a quick sop to the adherents of 10, Janpath who are well aware of Kesri's antipathy to this possibility. If Pawar succeeds in that mission -- it may not be easy, given that relations between him and the most important postal address in the country were never warm -- then Kesri is on a down trip to nowhere.

But the questions about Sharad Pawar too continue to niggle. What kind of a leader would he make for a party that is clearly on a respirator, especially considering that he has been unable to wrench back his own state, Maharashtra, from the saffron brigade? What kind of a support base does he have in mind, now that his own in not under his control anymore? Is that the kind of leadership that the party needs today to pull it out of the morass?

But those are the kind of question that Congressmen all over are known not to answer. They are not concerned with the fact that in his private feud with former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, Kesri has come on top; all they are bothered with is that they have to go back to their constituents and explain the rationale for the sudden death that had gripped their party for that fortnight in March-April. And, even while gloating over that period as the greatest period in his political life after all -- even Rajiv Gandhi had not dared to pull that kind of stunt -- it will do him good to realise that it may well cost him his job.

But the only way that can be arranged is by having Pawar pull out of the race; after all P V Narasimha Rao managed that in 1991, so should Kesri find this any difficult? Pawar, after all, has proved in the past that he was a rebel willing to strike, but afraid to wound.

This time, however, Kesri will find that he is up against something solid, something that could be qualified as the time of reckoning in Pawar's political career. With the passage of years, the Maratha can see that his own ambition of succeeding in New Delhi is diminishing, particularly because he is attempting to do what no one from his region has done before. If he does not act decisively now, at a time when the Congress heavyweights from the north have been submerged in the saffron-OBC assault, he knows that his time may never come. He does not need to be told that a week is a long time in politics; he has after all spent a lifetime in it.

But even as these satraps go about destroying each other, one person's moves -- or lack of it -- is intriguing. Just what is the Sphinx of Indian up to?

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