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The Rediff Special/Janardan Thakur

The basic text Sonia follows

Whenever a Congress leader gives a press interview or makes a statement in public, he has one reader/listener in mind: the party supremo. If his words have reached Sonia Gandhi he wouldn't bother if anyone else heard him or not. Which is why I wonder if what Shankarrao Chavan has been saying of late has been noted at 10 Janpath in New Delhi. If so, his stock must certainly have gone up where it matters. If not, Chavan has just wasted his breath.

What he said on Sharad Pawar, for instance, made little sense unless the purpose was to gladden Sonia Gandhi. Pawar cannot win more than two or three seats in the Lok Sabha elections, he maintained, which was a great prediction if it was meant for the ears of Sonia Gandhi. Otherwise it was just zilch.

People may or may not agree with Chavan's psephology, but they will surely agree that Pawar can win at least ten times the number of seats in Maharashtra, whether in the assembly or in Parliament, than Shankarrao. So if Sonia Gandhi depends more on men like Chavan or Murli Deora in Maharashtra, there has to be a good reason for it.

This reason Shankarrao certainly knows. During the high point of the hawala scandal, Chavan, who was then the home minister held a press conference in Bombay. How come the name of Sharad Pawar was not in the list of hawala beneficiaries, asked a cheeky journalist. Chavan ignored the question. The reporter repeated the question, and again Chavan said nothing. The third time the reporter asked the same question, Chavan looked at him sharply and said, 'Hawala is a matter of trust,' with emphasis on the last word.

Not only hawala. Even politics is a matter of trust, more so the politics of the Rajiv-Sonia variety. Sonia Gandhi can trust Shankarrao Chavan or Murli Deorli because they don't have their eyes set on the crown. She can now trust even Arjun Singh, for he is finally reconciled to the fact that his politics would end at the door of the Gandhis. But when it comes to Sharadrao Pawar, Sonia Gandhi's Hewlett Packard begins shrieking. She can take anything but the cries of this machine, one her most prized inheritances from her husband. It's not the hardware that matters, even Hewletts come dime a dozen. It is what was fed into the machine during Rajiv Gandhi's time that is important to her.

The dossiers on politicians prepared by Rajiv's spin-doctors continue to be the gospel for Sonia Gandhi. If the HP says Shankarrao is dumb but safe, she would go by that; if the HP says Pawar is not to be trusted, he is not to be trusted. Period.

'Opportunist' and 'back-stabbers' are words Shankarrao may have taken from the machine. Sharadrao's record there is all blotched. It has been that way for a long time. Nothing much changed even after the dramatic handshake between Rajiv and Pawar. Some days after Sharadrao had returned to the Congress, Rajiv was asked by one of his trusted journalists if he was going to make Pawar chief minister of Maharashtra again, and the prime minister replied with a naughty wink, 'What's the great rush? Let him go around in the corridors for some time.'

For nearly two years, Rajiv made Pawar cool his heels before sending him back to Bombay, not as an elected chief minister but as his appointee. 'A Maratha with a broken backbone,' some said of him.

Though Pawar was made chief minister again, not much had changed in the basic text of the HP dossier. What it said of Pawar then was far from complimentary. It must be far worse now. Its contents? Many years have passed since one had the chance to pry into the Pawar dossier, but some points have stayed in the mind. He was docketed as one of the 'new breed of politicians' -- brash, opportunistic, clever (though not very intelligent). He was said to be a 'go-getter', a queer mix of the earthy wisdom of Vasant Patil and the unscrupulousness of Abdul Rehman Antulay.

Much of the text related to the time when Pawar rode the high opposition horse, and looked poised to emerge as the 'NTR of Maharashtra'. He too had talked of hurt pride -- Maharashtrachi asmita. A journalist had asked Pawar about reports that he held detailed discussions with Vijay Dhar (then a confidant of Rajiv Gandhi) on his conditions for joining the Congress, and an incensed Pawar had shot back: 'There is no question about my joining the Congress. I will never help Mrs (Indira) Gandhi and the Congress.'

'But some politicians,' the reporter persisted, 'Confirm that talks were held and that it broke down because you wanted to be one of the general secretaries of the AICC and it was bluntly declined.' Pawar fumed. 'But what is a general secretary of the Congress? It is just like being one of the many chaprasis (peons) at the AICC. Who wants to be a chaprasi of the Congress?'

After he switched over from the Congress-S to Congress-I, he rationalised: 'These suffixes are irrelevant.' Indira Gandhi was no more, but then Pawar wouldn't have liked to be reminded of his earlier public speeches in Maharashtra when amid cries of 'shame, shame' he would pour contempt on the 'veteran Vasantdada going to Dilli Durbar and bowing to Prince Rajiv.'

What did he think of Rajiv Gandhi, a correspondent of the Calcutta weekly, Sunday, had asked him bluntly. 'Considering the fact that you are just 42 years old (in 1986), you will perhaps be a serious contender to Rajiv Gandhi in the years to come?' This had titillated the great Maratha's vanity. He laughed and said, 'I don't know if he is my challenger or I am his challenger. I have never met that man [italics mine]. The way Mrs Gandhi is giving him publicity and the way the central and the state governments of the Congress are using their machinery for his image-building, is astonishing. The radio, the television, the government media, are repeatedly drilling the message that 'he is the man.' I am told he was a good pilot. And a pilot's habit is to always depend on the control tower. Whenever the control tower tells him to land, he lands, if it tells him to take off, he takes off. I do not know whether he continues with that habit of receiving orders from the control tower. We have to see whether he can take off without the control tower or not...'

Since Rajiv Gandhi did take off without the control tower, Pawar must have changed his opinion about 'that man'. Like a good weather vane, Pawar knew the wind, and power being his sole motivating force, he bowed to Prince Rajiv.

Pawar is now at a decisive point in his political career. Thrown out of the Congress by Sonia Gandhi, he is again busy putting together a new vehicle for his journey to power. But can he do it? Can he win back even Maharashtra?

A practical politician of the 'new breed', Sharad Pawar has a keen insight into the nuts and bolts of power. He is the darling of the sugar lobby of Maharashtra. He also has the backing of some top industrial houses in the state. Politics is power is money -- that is the key to success. Over the years, he has certainly created one asset: a band of faithful mediamen not only in Maharashtra but also in New Delhi to sing hallelujahs to him whenever needed. Pawar had been an adept defector, but his defections were often cited as examples of 'political acumen.' When Pawar threw his hat in the ring for the prime minister's post, after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the Maharashtra press just could not imagine how he could lose.

Pawar's sycophants described him as 'Shivaji II', but others who had seen him at a close range doubted if he was much of a fighter. 'Given a choice, he will always shrink from battle and look for a deal,' said one commentator, after he gave in to Narasimha Rao's pressures and returned as chief minister to Maharashtra. Another commentator pointed out that during Rajiv Gandhi's time, when Pawar was made chief minister, his supporters bragged that he would now 'finish off the Shiv Sena.' Instead, Sharad Pawar got cosy with Bal Thackeray through his friend, Manohar Joshi, and never confronted the Shiv Sena. The result was the Congress lost its majority in the assembly in 1990, for the very first time. Pawar became the chief minister of a minority government and survived merely by manipulations.

Not a happy profile at all. But that is no reason for leaders like Shankarrao Chavan to jump around. If they could see what the 10 Janpath dossiers say of them they would probably freeze in their seats.

The Rediff Specials

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