Sharad Pawar is back, again; his NCP faction looks at highest strike rate in Maharashtra

Left with a handful of leaders and legislators, his nephew usurping his party name and symbol, veteran politician Sharad Pawar was down last year. Eleven months later, the 83-year-old has bounced back. With his party, NCP (SP) — Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) — leading in eight of the 10 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Maharashtra, Pawar has displayed his resolve to take up challenges and seems to have given a new lease of life to his party by hitting the highest strike rate as per the initial counting trends.

The role of Pawar in this Lok Sabha election was being closely watched for more than two reasons. Firstly, Pawar Senior is considered the mastermind behind the initiative that saw the formation of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the pan-India level.

Despite his cordial relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pawar not only gave a clarion call to fight against the BJP at the Centre and the state, but also set new narratives that often put his rivals on the backfoot.

For example, in the middle of the five-phase voting in Maharashtra’s 48 seats, Pawar in an interview to The Indian Express suggested a possible reshaping of Opposition politics after the 2024 elections, saying that regional parties will move closer or, in some cases, even merge with the Congress.

“In the next couple of years, several regional parties will associate more closely with the Congress. Or they may look at the option of merging with the Congress if they believe that is the best for their party,” he said.

Asked whether that applied to his own party, he replied, “I don’t see any difference between the Congress and us… Ideologically, we belong to the Gandhi, Nehru line of thinking.”

Pawar’s statement forced the top BJP leadership to