Are Sharad Pawar & Uddhav Thackeray Unsure About Their Policy On Waqf Law Changes?

A lot of discussion is ongoing in Maharashtra's political circles about why NCP founder Sharad Pawar and his party have been relatively silent on their response over the debate related to the Waqf Bill and have not been seen vocally opposing the BJP on the subject inside the Parliament or outside it.

The only exception was NCP Sharad Pawar party's Rajya Sabha MP Fouzia Khan speaking on the subject in the upper house of the Parliament, but generally Sharad Pawar's party chose to remain silent on the subject even in the media. He was absent in the upper house on the day the discussion on the Waqf issue happened there, announcing that he stayed away due to health issues.

Pawar's alliance partner, Uddhav Thackeray, looked like he, too, was unsure till the last moment about what response he wanted to offer to the Waqf Bill proposed by the BJP, and in social media, the BJP took full advantage of this, claiming that Uddhav's party wanted to back the view of the minority community leaders on the subject.

Uddhav held a press conference in Mumbai to clarify that he had suspicions about the way the changes in the Waqf law would be used by certain vested interest groups, who, in his view, could take over land in various parts of the country aided by the amended law. All this gives rise to the question, "Are the two out of three constituents of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) confused about what response to give to the changes in the Waqf law?”

Some leaders of the MVA said, while speaking off record with the media in Mumbai, that they suspected that Sharad Pawar had indirectly helped the BJP-led NDA government on this subject by virtually abstaining during voting on the Waqf Bill. The claim by these MVA leaders, most of them from the Congress party, took credence because, interestingly, NCP founder Sharad Pawar had also remained absent in the Parliament during the discussion on the Triple Talaq Bill brought in by the BJP.

It seemed as if somebody from the ruling side had requested the NCP founder "to help during this crucial voting in the Parliament so that such an important bill could go through without any problems," said a prominent leader of the Congress party.

Sharad Pawar's party has had a history of helping out the BJP at crucial stages. In 2014 state assembly elections, when the BJP won 122 seats in the House and needed to reach the majority mark of 145, Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena, which had fought the elections without an alliance with their saffron partner, refused to come along with the BJP in a post-poll alliance.

At that time, Sharad Pawar's NCP announced that, in the interest of Maharashtra, a stable government was needed, and hence they would support the BJP from the outside in the state assembly to reach the majority mark. This enabled Devendra Fadnavis to take oath as the first-ever BJP party Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

In the 2017 Gujarat elections, the NCP refused to get into an alliance with its traditional partner Congress in the state polls and fielded over 40 candidates, which indirectly helped the BJP to win a majority in the state.

This time it seems that Sharad Pawar's NCP has once again come ahead to indirectly help the NDA government in passing the Waqf Bill. Though it was clear in the Lok Sabha that the BJP clearly had the majority, the party still had some doubts about getting a comfortable majority in passing the bill because of some uncertainty over which way some alliance partners, such as Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu, would go. However, the NDA could easily establish its lead and got the Waqf bill passed comfortably in the House.

Those who have watched Sharad Pawar for a long time say that it is his "ear to the ground approach" which may have made him take this decision to not resist the BJP over the Waqf issue. Sharad Pawar has a ground connect in Maharashtra like no other political leader in the state and perhaps feels that the Hindutva-centric politics that the BJP is currently driving are getting support on the ground, and there is no point in opposing it, at least right now, when no big elections are up for at least five months.

It is clear that the civic polls in Mumbai and over a dozen other municipal corporations will happen only after the monsoon now. So Sharad Pawar, perhaps, feels there is no point in taking confrontation with the BJP right now over any Hindutva-related issues that are ongoing.

In the case of Uddhav Thackeray, many feel that it is sheer confusion in his party that makes him seem indecisive on the subject of Waqf law changes. In the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, the minority community came out and openly supported Uddhav Thackeray's party in Mumbai, Thane district, and other parts of Maharashtra, but this fact was used by the BJP to portray Uddhav as a leader who had deviated from the path of Hindutva.

This campaign hurt his prospects in the 2024 assembly polls, in which he could win only 18 seats in the House out of 288. Now, Uddhav is overcautious about not giving out a message that he has deviated from the Hindutva ideology or has become the guardian of minorities in Maharashtra.

This cautious approach makes Uddhav look like he wants to keep his stakes on both sides of the debate over the Waqf law. In all, it seems like two prominent players of the MVA do not want a confrontation with the BJP on the issue of Waqf and want this issue to just pass.

Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune

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