Rebellion, tension brewing up in Pawar clan for a while

Rebellion and tension were brewing up in the Pawar family of Baramati for some time - and it has now come in open.

Baramati in Pune district is the bastion of the Pawar family.

NCP founder-president Sharad Pawar, his daughter Supriya Sule and nephew Ajit Pawar all had been in the denial mode all these years and refused to acknowledge it.

After Ajit (60) switched sides and allied with BJP, his cousin Supriya (50), changed her WhatsApp status to: "party and family split" - that spoke enough of what was happening in the most important political family of Maharashtra.

"I have seen several such crises in life," said Pawar, the 79-year-old, who had never lost an election in life and known for his fighting spirit.

In 1999, Pawar, along with PA Sangama and Tariq Anwar raised the issue of foreign origin of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and were expelled from the grand old party.

Pawar formed the Nationalist Congress Party and after 1999 Vidhan Sabha polls came together with Congress to form the Democratic Front government.

There were too many aspirants for the post of deputy chief ministers and he was ignored. In 2004 polls, when NCP got more numbers, Pawar gave away the post of CM against important portfolios. In fact, Ajit was very unhappy but could not say much.

When in 2006, Pawar launched Supriya in politics and sent her to Rajya Sabha, a rift among the family and the two cousins surfaced.

Thereafter, in 2012, his name cropped up in the Rs 70,000 irrigation scam after which he resigned as deputy chief minister only to assume the post a month later.

In 2013, when Ajit made a comment that "if dams are empty should I urinate", he got a dressing down from his uncle.

Just before the Lok Sabha polls, Pawar was under pressure from the party to contest general elections but had to back out as Ajit pressurised him to give his son Parth from Maval, who, however, got defeated.

Ahead of the Vidhan Sabha polls, the uncle-nephew duo was booked in the Rs 25,000 Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam by the Mumbai police and Enforcement Directorate.

While Pawar Sr decided to walk to the ED office without even being summoned, putting the BJP-led government in defensive, the junior felt ignored. He abruptly resigned as MLA. Later, he broke down and said he felt bad as his uncle's name was unnecessarily dragged.

Now the split is wide open.