Indian Political Leader - Mr. Sharad Pawar

Chapter 3- Findings

3.3 Mr. Sharad Pawar

Sharadchandra Govind Rao Pawar (born December 12, 1940) Maratha strongman and president of the Nationalist Congress Party which he formed in 1999 in India.

He is affectionately called Sharad Pawar. He leads its delegation in the Lok Sabha, representing his home consituency of Baramati. He has a prominent place in Indian national politics as well as regional politics of Maharashtra.

He currently serves as Food and Agriculture Union Minister, with additional charge of Consumer Affairs and the Public Distribution System. Since 2005 he has also served as Chairman of the Board for Control of Cricket in India. He is from the town of Baramati in Pune district.

Shri Sharadchandra Rao Pawar is considered proudly to be one of the the Tri-Ratna or the Three-Jewells in the crown of the Paramara clan by the members of this clan of Rajputs .The other two are: Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar & Thakur Sher Singh Parmar.

3.3.1 International accomplishments

Pawar has been involved in United Nations and World Health Organization. He has also represented India leading the Disaster Management Team for United Nations. He has an impressive record with United Nations for his excellent management of recovering Latur from an earthquake within a short time. His biography has been listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World, that describes influential world leaders over the last 100 years. Only three other Indian politicians i.e., P. V. Narasimha Rao , Manmohan Singh and Shankarrao Chavan have been included in this contemporary biographical library.

3.3.2 Political History

He entered the Maharashtra legislative assembly for the first time in 1967 from Baramati, representing the undivided Congress Party. In 1978, Vasantdada Patil was the political mentor of Sharad Pawar. Mr. Pawar broke away from the Congress to form a coalition government with the opposition Janata party. This Progressive Democratic Front government was dismissed in February 1980, following Indira Gandhi's return to power at the Centre. In the elections that followed, the Congress party won the majority in state assembly and A.R. Antulay took over as the chief minister of the state. Sharad Pawar remained a key opposition leader in the state assembly. For the first time, he won Lok Sabha election from Baramati parliamentary constituency in 1984. He also won state assembly elections of March 1985 from Baramati and preferred to continue in state politics for a while and resigned from the Lok Sabha. In 1985 elections, his Congress (S) won 54 seats out of 288 in the state assembly and he became the leader of the opposition.

In 1987, Sharad Pawar returned to Congress(I) party after being out of it for over nine years. In June 1988, Prime Minister and Congress President Rajiv Gandhi decided to induct then Maharashtra Chief Minister Shankarrao Chavan into Union Cabinet as Finance Minister and Sharad Pawar was chosen to replace Chavan as chief minister. Sharad Pawar had the task of checking the rise of the Shiv Sena in state politics, which was a potential challenge to the dominance of Congress party in the state. In 1989 Lok Sabha elections, Congress party won 28 seats out of 48 in Maharashtra. Though the Congress party maintained a respectable tally in the state and was not routed as in some other states like Rajasthan and Gujarat, it meant a loss of 15 seats when compared with 1984. In the state assembly elections of February 1990, the alliance between the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party posed a stiff challenge to the Congress. Though the Congress managed to retain power, it fell short of an absolute majority in the state assembly for the first time, winning 141 seats out 288. Sharad Pawar was sworn in as chief minister again on March 4, 1990 with the support of 12 independent MLAs.

Sharad Pawar led the campaign for the Congress for the mid-term parliamentary elections of 1991 in Maharashtra. The Congress bettered its performance by winning 38 seats out of 48 in the state. During the course of election campaign, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. There were reports in the media that Pawar's name was being considered for the Prime Minister's post along with those of P.V. Narasimha Rao and Arjun Singh. However the Congress Parliamentary Party elected P.V. Narasimha Rao as its leader and he was sworn in as Prime Minister on June 21, 1991. Rao decided to induct Pawar as Defence Minister. On June 26, 1991, Pawar took over as that portfolio, continuing till March 1993. After Pawar's successor in Maharashtra, Sudhakarrao Naik stepped down, Rao sent Pawar back as chief minister of the state.

He was sworn in as chief minister for his fourth and most controversial term on March 6, 1993. Almost immediately, Mumbai, the financial capital of India and the state capital of Maharashtra, was rocked with series of bomb blasts on March 12, 1993.

The Deputy Commissioner of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, G.R. Khairnar made a series of accusations against Pawar for being involved in corruption and protecting the criminals. Though Khairnar could not produce any evidence in support of his claims, it inevitably affected Pawar's popularity. Notable social worker Anna Hazare started a fast unto death to demand expulsion of 12 officers of the Forest department of Government of Maharashtra, who had been accused of corruption. The opposition parties accused Pawar's government of trying to shield the corrupt officers. Further, there was a sex scandal at Jalgaon in which a number of young girls were subjected to sexual abuse, which expanded to involve local municipal corporators belonging to Congress. To make matters worse for the Congress party, there was a stampede in the march of Gowari tribespeople at Nagpur on November 23, 1994, in which 123 people were killed. The march had been to demand reservations in educational institutes and jobs. Allegations were made that the mishap occurred because welfare minister Madhukarrao Pichad did not meet with the delegation of the Vanjara people in time. Though Pichad stepped down owing moral responsibility for the mishap, this incident was another setback to Sharad Pawar's government.

The elections to the Vidhan Sabha were due to be held in 1995. The Shiv Sena and BJP combine was leading the Congress in the polls, and there was widespread rebellion in the Congress party. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine won 138 seats while Congress party retained only 80 seats in the state assembly. Sharad Pawar had to step down and Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi took over as chief minister on March 14, 1995.

Till the Lok Sabha elections of 1996, Sharad Pawar served as the Leader of the Opposition in State Legislative Council. In the 1996 General elections, he won from the Baramati seat and has not returned to the State Assembly since.

In June 1997,he unsuccessfully challenged Sitaram Kesri for the post of Congress President. In the mid-term parliamentary elections of 1998, Sharad Pawar not only won from his constituency, Baramati but also led the Congress to an emphatic win in Maharashtra. His move to align with the Republican Party of India (Athvale) and Samajwadi Party for the elections in the state brought rich dividents and the Congress party and allies won 37 seats out of 48 in the state. Sharad Pawar served as Leader of Opposition in 12th Lok Sabha.

After 12th Lok Sabha was dissolved and elections to 13th Lok Sabha were due, Pawar, P.A. Sangma and Tariq Anwar demanded that the Congress Party needed to project someone born in India as the Prime Ministerial candidate and not the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, who had entered party politics and replaced Kesri as Congress President.

In June 1999, Pawar and Sangma founded the Nationalist Congress Party. His party had to align with the Congress party to form a coalition government in Maharashtra as neither party could win an absolute majority on its own in the 1999 assembly elections. Pawar, however, did not return to state politics, and Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress was chosen as Chief Minister, with R.R.Patil representing the NCP as his deputy. The alliance has endured at the national and state level to this day.

After 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he joined the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Manmohan Singh as the Minister for Agriculture and Food.

On November 29, 2005, he was elected President of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). He is known for his excellent administrative skills.

3.3.3 Strengths

• Enormous grassroots knowledge. He knows every district and taluka of Maharashtra, and possibly every leader in each.
• Pawar is known to be a great talent-spotter. He was the one who suggested a political career to Sub-Inspector Sushilkumar Shinde way back in 1973. Today Shinde is the chief minister of Maharashtra.
• He also convinced Chhagan Bhujbal to quit the Shiv Sena and join the Congress in December 1990, giving Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray a big jolt. Bhujbal later became deputy chief minister of Maharashtra.

3.3.4 Ambition

Wants to become prime minister. The closest he came to realising his dream was in 1991, after the Congress came to power in the post-Rajiv Gandhi era. But he had to settle for the job of defence minister under P V Narasimha Rao.

3.3.5 Drawbacks

• Pawar has the image of being untrustworthy. His abandoning his mentor Yashwantrao Chavan to win power continues to haunt him.
• He has also been involved in his fair share of controversies, including, most famously, the Enron fiasco. It was his government that cleared the Enron project in 1993.
• Also, Pawar has failed to expand his base beyond western Maharashtra.