Sharad Pawar is one of India’s powerful regional politicians, at times on the cusp of becoming prime minister. The closest he got – and perhaps ever will – was following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, when Narasimha Rao got the job.
FLASH BACK a few years and many of the readers would recollect a speech in parliament delivered by ex Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar. In one of his poignant remarks he had reminded Sharad Pawar that money and power is not to be the all and end all of life.
The speech could still be retrieved from the archives of Parliament. I have loved and respected Pawar as the last vestige of Chanakya brand politics. As a horse of long race, he somehow always clinged to power but I am sorry to observe he is also a perennial loser where moral standards are concerned. Sharad Pawar is one of India’s powerful regional politicians, at times on the cusp of becoming prime minister.
The closest he got – and perhaps ever will – was following Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, when Narasimha Rao got the job. When he first became a state minister, way back in 1966, Pawar’s only connection to cricket was a tenuous one – his father-in-law, Sadu Shinde, was a Test legspinner, who toured England in 1946. With his stunning victory over Jagmohan Dalmiya’s nominee Ranbir Singh Mahendra at the 76th AGM of the board, Pawar is now at the head of the country’s cricket administration.
As the federal agriculture minister of a nation still prone to droughts and mass suicides by farmers he had hardly acquired any feather in his cap. Had he played his cards well, he could have been the Prime Minister of India today. His problem is – he wants to bite more than he could chew. Even with all his peculiarities and foxy politics he has been reduced to an inefficient minister who can’t even manage properly the stocks of wheat at his disposal. He can’t handle rats, forget about rest of animate or innanimate subjects or objects. He is squarely blamed for the rising prices of every essential commodity and his nexus with Bal Thackrey, though it got him some seats in Maharashtra had already made him a person you can’t trust.
