Page 10 - Seniors Today Dec 2019
P. 10
Sharad Pawar has always had the pulse of the people (Photos: Fotocorp)
alone for most of the campaign but focussed on underlining his age and clicking their tongues
Pawar and targetted him relentlessly, knowing at how the “old man” was pushing himself to
he was the last man standing. They had to bring the extreme during the campaign, some in
him down one last time to capture Maharashtra wonder and appreciation, the others in plain
in the same manner they have done Gujarat, disapproval – the latter attributing motives of a
Uttar Pradesh and a few other states. Former hunger for power to him. “Why can’t he just let
chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was not go?” many of them asked. “What more does he
even born when Pawar stepped into electoral want out of life and politics?”
politics more than a half century ago (in 1967 Pawar, who steps into his 80th year on
when he first contested the assembly election December 12 this year, shot back to those
from Baramati in Pune district) mocked him making repeated references to his age, “I am
relentlessly for not just being old but also for not 78 years old. I am 78 years young and don’t
having become irrelevant. “Pawar should know think I cannot take on the best of them.”
the era of his politics is over,” Fadnavis said. Indeed, he did. Not just Fadnavis but also
“We could have taken more men from his party Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who too had
and emptied it completely. But we were already ridiculed Pawar for being, well, the last man
Houseful. They are still waiting to join us. Mee standing in his party. “At the end of the day,
punha yein (I will return (as chief minister)),” there will be only two people left in the Congress
Fadnavis said in Nashik on the last day of and NCP,” Shah had said. “Prithviraj Chavan
campaign, yards from where Pawar too was and Sharad Pawar.”
addressing one of his last campaign meetings Indeed, they were. But Shah should have taken
for the season. both rather more seriously, for it is Pawar and
Chavan now who are jointly responsible for
Robust repartee the stunning regime change in Maharashtra –
While he did not take Fadnavis’ bait then, Pawar leading the charge and Chavan taking
Pawar did respond to both critics and friends on his own reluctant party leaders to force
10
