Why Ajit Pawar yet again failed in his coup attempt?

New Delhi: The buzz that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar was yet again going to align with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had gripped Maharashtra for a few weeks before it suddenly subsided in the past few days.

This was the second time that Ajit Pawar failed in his coup attempt in the NCP after the first bid on midnight of November 23, 2019, when he took oath as deputy chief minister with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister. However, the entire NCP barring a few rallied behind Sharad Pawar and by November 24 evening all the disgruntled legislators had come back to the party.

Within three days on November 26, both Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar put in their papers paving the way for the formation of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress coalition government in the state.

Ajit Pawar had failed in his bid to break the NCP, but Uncle Sharad Pawar forgave him and named him deputy chief minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government with Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray as the chief minister.

Three and a half years later, Ajit Pawar once again tried to give a jolt to Sharad Pawar, but the veteran leader outwitted him this time too. It is said that less than 20 of the 53 legislators had pledged support to Ajit Pawar.

That number wasn’t enough for him to convince the BJP to dump chief minister Eknath Shinde who had last year successfully overthrown his former party boss from the post by engineering a major defection in the Shiv Sena.

The BJP is apparently willing to do away with Shinde who has proved to be a liability rather than an asset for the saffron party. Shinde cannot guarantee the required number of Lok Sabha seats for the BJP, and Maharashtra after Uttar Pradesh is an important state in its scheme of things.

Uddhav Thackeray might have lost the support of his legislators, but he has been able to generate a lot of public sympathy in view of Shinde’s revolt in the Shiv Sena aided by the BJP. His popularity is on the rise, and he has on many occasions in the recent past rejected the BJP’s overtures to join hands once again.

Ajit Pawar’s failed coup attempt yet again shows the tight grip of Sharad Pawar over the NCP. The alert this time came from Uddhav Thackeray who surprisingly remained clueless about the defections in his own party.

Now, Sharad Pawar has hinted at carrying out a major reshuffle in his organisation by saying that roti (bread) must be turned at the right time or else it becomes bitter.

Does it mean that Ajit Pawar’s powers in the NCP would be curtailed, or will his uncle finally anoint him as his successor? Interesting times ahead for the NCP.