Sharad Pawar

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

Relations with the Congress

The Times of India, Dec 13 2015

Rajeev Deshpande

Rajiv wanted to oust me from Maha CM's chair

NCP chief Sharad Pawar says Rajiv Gandhi had initiated a coup against his chief ministership but the plan came a cropper when the legislature party overwhelmingly voted in his favour in 1990. Some Maharashtra Congress bigwigs raised a banner of revolt against his leadership. He says he was sure that while they were acting at the behest of the high command, they had little support on the ground. It triggered a battle of wits between the leadership and the CM and ended in embarrassment for Rajiv Gandhi. He has made these claims in his just released book “On My Terms“.

Interestingly , while he has expressed desire to join hands with Congress again in 2019, Pawar also says that the Gandhis “consider Congress as their family fiefdom“, adding that Sonia Gandhi would not have brooked an independentminded PM, a reason he lost out to Naransimha Rao in 1991.

Ghulam Nabi Azad and G K Moopanar came to Mumbai as central observers for the meeting of the legislature party and the legislators had been told in advance that the “higher ups“ desired a change in leadership.

The observers did not want a vote in the legislature party and preferred individual meetings to gauge the mood ­ what Pawar says “was the usual ploy employed by the high command to muffle the majority view which was inconvenient to them“. But many MLAs and MLCs turn ed hostile to the idea.

Pawar was soon called to Delhi for a meeting with Ra jiv Gandhi who made a query of courtesy “what's happen ing“. Pawar says he replied “You know better than me Everyone in Mumbai acted quite efficiently as per your instructions. However, they unfortunately could not mus ter support.“

Pawar says, Rajiv Gandhi obliquely accepted his role in the aborted coup. “No, no Something went wrong there I had just asked them to shake the tree, not uproot it,“ he re plied. He says he later pressed for the removal of rebels from the state cabinet but Ra jiv Gandhi did not agree.