Ajit Pawar tries to play statue politics

The removal of Dadoji Konddeo’s statue in Pune has pitched the NCP against the Shiv Sena and the MNS. But deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar wants to consolidate his political identity as a Maratha strongman by riding high on statue politics.

The junior Pawar’s strategy marks a shift from that of his mentor and uncle Sharad Pawar’s whose social engineering skills were integral to the party’s politics. Despite being called a Maratha strongman, Sharad Pawar always worked to integrate the forward and backward caste combination in the organisation.

The controversy over the removal of the statue of Dadoji Konddeo, mentor of Chhatrapati Shivaji, at

Lal Mahal in Pune, is in reality a political battle where young turks in the NCP, under the leadership of Ajit Pawar, are consolidating their hold on the 33% Marathas across the state.

Konddev was a Brahmins. As a result the politics is veering towards Marathas versus Brahmins. Except for the Congress, which finds itself in a sticky foot and unable to take any stand, the BJP, the Shiv Sena and the MNS have joined hands to fight the NCP.

“Ajit (Pawar) is following in the footsteps of his uncle Sharad Pawar,” BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde said.

“In the past, Sharad Pawar has often resorted to emotive politics. Ajit too has done the same thing and tried to divert the real issue of corruption and administrative failures of the Congress-NCP government.”

The controversy was triggered by the long-pending demand of the Sambhaji Brigade (Maratha dominated) to replace the statue of Shivaji’s mentor Konddev with Shivaji’s father Shahaji Raje at Pune. What made matters worse was the controversial James Laine book where the author described Konddev as Shivaji’s biological father.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray said that Konddeo came in Shivaji’s life when he was seven. “Where is the scope for any controversy?” he asked.

Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said that the NCP was indulging in statue politics because of the upcoming corporation elections. “We will teach them a lesson,” he said.
All political parties in the state had condemned Laine’s book and justified its ban on the grounds that it had distorted facts. But leaders from the BJP, the Shiv Senam and the MNS said they could not justify the NCP’s decision to remove Konddev’s statue as he was Shivaji’s mentor.