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Sunday, Jun 06, 2004

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Firm friend

Unless petty calculations of Maharashtra politics sour Sharad Pawar's equations with the Congress, he is ideally suited to become a source of coalitional equanimity.

BESIDES THE Big Four, Sharad Pawar is probably the most seasoned ministerial hand; he brings to the job more than two decades of administrative experience. Mr. Pawar has been a study in deliberateness. He has already won approving nods for his insistence on applying his mind to the problems of his vast ministerial empire before speaking up. He is one colleague the Prime Minister can depend on not to speak out of turn.

What is more, Mr. Pawar has no ego hassles with the Prime Minister, a problem Manmohan Singh can expect to encounter with Pranab Mukherjee or Natwar Singh. Mr. Pawar and Dr. Singh were said to have had an excellent working relationship when both were Cabinet colleagues in the Narasimha Rao Government.

Ideologically too, he is closer to Dr. Singh and P. Chidambaram than any other Minister in the coalition Government. As Chief Minister of Maharashtra, he has had a naturally easy relationship with industrialists; he has personal friendships with a number of the Bombay Club members.

However, Mr. Pawar has somewhat of an uneasy relationship with Sonia Gandhi. This is not unnatural. After all, he parted company with the Congress in 1999 over Ms. Gandhi's suitability to be the Prime Minister of India. But in recent years, harsh political realities forced the two to do business together. Now both have a grudging respect for the other's strength. But this far-from-relaxed relationship is not going to detract from Mr. Pawar's usefulness as Dr. Singh's Cabinet colleague.

He could easily have bargained for one of the Big Four portfolios, but when he was asked to state his choice, he preferred an enlarged "agriculture" Ministry. As an omnibus Minister for "Agriculture, Food & Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution," he is virtually the new agriculture czar.

He is quite clear that he must use his new charge to make a substantial difference to the plight of the farmers, especially in Maharashtra, which is going to have Assembly polls later in the year. Eleven districts in the State are in the grip of a severe drought and the sugar industry is in the doldrums. The Congress leadership will depend on him to use his very enlarged ministerial perch to turn things around in Maharashtra. Within a few days, he was able to secure from the Prime Minister a Rs. 500-crore package for the State.

Unless petty calculations of Maharashtra politics sour up Mr. Pawar's equations with the Congress party, he is ideally suited to become a source of coalitional equanimity. Technically, he remains a non-Congressman but spiritually he and the Prime Minister are on the same side of the political divide.

He is ideally suited to play the same kind of integrative role with the non-Congress coalition partners that George Fernandes played during the National Democratic Alliance rule.

H.K.

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