A political and ‘tactical’ snag

The Congress could barely contain its glee when word came in on Friday morning that Sharad Pawar had skipped the Third Front rally in Bhubaneswar. The NCP's official explanation for his absence was a "technical" snag in his plane.

The Congress had a different take. A 10 Janpath hatchet man dubbed it a "tactical" snag. In Pawar, he crowed, not the plane. Such is the hostility between the two parties (did someone say allies?) that the Congress party's headquarters in the capital buzzed the entire day with black stories on how the Maratha strongman was tamed.

One story was that the Congress had read the riot act to Pawar through "friendly" interlocutor Praful Patel. It threatened to snap the electoral tie-up in Maharashtra, let the state government fall, and sack NCP ministers in the Union government. Ouch! The Congress is in an unusually belligerent mood these days. The other story being circulated in sinister whispers is cricket-related, that the BCCI stick was used to bring Pawar to heel.

The chatter ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. One Union minister with a propensity for garrulousness hinted that Sonia Gandhi herself spoke to Pawar. Another version claimed that the message went from one Patel (Ahmed) to another Patel (Praful). A third said the UPA's man for all tasks, Pranab Mukherjee, was roped in to talk tough.

Pawar himself rubbished the speculation with a cutting remark. "I don't need to learn politics from others," he said. Brave words, but he has a lot of explaining to do to pacify his would-be partners in the Third Front who were pretty upset with his no-show at the rally.

Pawar's account to BJD chief Naveen Patnaik was radically different, naturally. He spoke to Patnaik just before the rally began and gave him a long-winded story about being stuck in Nashik because the plane that was to fly him to Bhubaneswar failed to take off from Mumbai due to a technical problem. He apparently told Patnaik that he had even sent an SOS to industrialist friend Rahul Bajaj, asking to borrow his private plane. Bajaj was willing but when he discovered that only one pilot was available instead of the usual crew of two, he backed off. He didn't want to take the risk of sending Pawar with one pilot in the plane.

Third Front leaders are not quite sure what to make of the episode. If Maharashtra's most well-connected politician, whose loyalist is the country's civil aviation minister, can't raise a plane or a pilot in an emergency, then his influence must not be what it's cracked up to be.

Patnaik was most upset by the development. He is gambling big time with his political future by exchanging the BJP's established spread in tribal Orissa with the minuscule presence of the Left parties and the NCP. He needed a full house on the dais that morning to get momentum for his new alignment.

Pawar has offered to address another rally in Orissa next week. But there is another snag. He wants only Patnaik, not the rest of the Third Front, to attend. What will the Congress make of that little nuance?

TAILPIECE
Journos who accompanied Manmohan Singh to the G20 summit in London were surprised how non-committal he was about the prospect of another innings for a Congress-led government. He even evaded a question about his chances as prime minister for a second term. He merely said he was confident that the Congress would be the largest party and left it at that. Such diffidence is unusual at election time.