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I personally ensured that Ramsheth Thakur, the lone Peasant and Workers Party MP, voted against the Vajpayee government. And I did so at the behest of Saheb (Sharad Pawar)," discloses Vitthalrao Thupe, the Congress MP from Pune and a close associate of expelled Congress leader Sharad Pawar.

"For two days during the debate on the confidence motion I was with Thakur so that no one from the BJP could approach him. The Vajpayee government fell only because of Saheb's efforts. Saheb knew each and every vote was important. But what did Sonia Gandhi give him in return? Nothing."

"The Congress party talks of democracy. But there is no democracy in the party. When Sonia Gandhi went to meet the President to stake her claim she didn't even bother to ask Saheb to accompany her. After all, she should have remembered he was the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha," adds Thupe.

Was that, then, what compelled Pawar take this drastic step?

A member of the Pawar family reveals the rebel leader had decided on his moves a month ago, ever since Sonia decided to form the government without consulting him. After that, he realised he would never be able to occupy the prime minister's post as long as Sonia was Congress president.

Says Thupe, "Pawar came very close to becoming prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi's death. Now, had the Congress given him a chance to become PM, he could have managed the support of other parties."

However, what Pawar could not digest was the fact that Sonia showed complete disregard for him after he did his best to bring down the Vajpayee government.

"And in spite of his talent, she listened to Arjun Singh and Pranab Mukherjee, people who have no strength to win elections on their own," the relative adds.

"Pawar called me after the Vajpayee government fell and asked me for my opinion on whether he should continue in the party.

"I told him there was no point in continuing in a party where you are never trusted," Thupe continued.

Another problem Pawar had with the high command was the fact that Sonia always used him in emergency situations, abandoning him after the work was done.

"Had Arjun Singh won the 1998 Lok Sabha election Pawar would never have become leader of the Opposition," says the family member.

Like this family member, most Pawar supporters in Baramati -- his Lok Sabha constituency -- feel what he did was absolutely right and there was no point for him to continue in the Congress.

"We had no objection to her continuing as party president. But when she brought down all her family members from Italy for her swearing-in ceremony, it upset Pawar a lot. First, because his dreams of becoming prime minister would never be fulfilled and second, he knew the Congress did not have the numbers in the Lok Sabha to form a government," says Pawar's elder brother, Appasaheb Pawar.

Adds Thupe, "Had Sonia asked Pawar to form the government, he would have ensured that a Congress government was in place today. Unfortunately, she didn't trust his skills and was more dependent on other Congress leaders."

Recalling the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting after the fall of the Vajpayee government, Thupe said CPP meetings never lasted more than 15 minutes.

And what upset him and other Pawar supporters was the fact that every schedule of the meeting was decided by the Congress Working Committee, especially by those "who had no strength to win elections on their own".

"You will be shocked that the fate of the Lok Sabha was decided by Congress leaders from the Rajya Sabha. And this upset us a lot as we felt they had no right to dictate to us, for they could not win elections," adds Thupe.

When we reached Baramati at 2 in the afternoon, hours after Pawar was expelled from the Congress, the town wore a deserted look, shops were shut and not much human presence was seen on the roads. At first sight, it felt like a summer siesta, till we saw men in khaki patrolling the chowks. Then it struck us that there could be trouble brewing.

Soon our eyes fell on a blackboard in the middle of the market square, proclaiming in Marathi the Baramati Bandh over Pawar's expulsion.

Said Ravi G Khadke, owner of a general store, "Don't you know, today the Congress is alive in Maharashtra because of Saheb, and these Congressmen have expelled him!"

Says Pawar's elder brother, Appasaheb Pawar, "No foreign-born can feel as close to India as a natural-born Indian. After all, my brother raised this question in the CWC meeting and not publicly. What is wrong in it? I don't think he has committed such a big crime that he should be expelled."

There is also the subterranean feeling locally, that it is in the blood of the Marathas to revolt against injustice.

Says Haribhau Deshpande, a family friend of the Pawars, "Shivaji Maharaj never bowed before Aurangzeb when called to his palace. So why should Saheb bow? It is in our soil to revolt against foreign rule and Saheb has done just that."

Ask the supporters about Pawar's earlier statement that Sonia should become prime minister, and one gets interesting responses.

Says Thupe in defence of Pawar's statement, "After it became certain there will be elections, Saheb realised there was a general feeling in the country that no foreigner should head the government. And, had Sonia Gandhi become the Congress's prime ministerial candidate the party would have suffered a terrible setback. So, he raised that point now."

Says Sunil Shinde, Shiv Sena Pune district president, "Pawar realised he cannot become prime minister so long as he was in the Congress. He planned this move because he feels he can become prime minister even with the support of 20 MPs. But he is overestimating his strength."

Deshpande feels otherwise. "Sonia campaigned in Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Why was the Congress defeated in those states? The simple reason is, there was no Sharad Pawar there. It is wrong to give credit to Sonia Gandhi for the Congress's victory in the last Lok Sabha election."

Also interestingly, Pawar's supporters don't think he is on a sticky wicket, considering that all those who challenged the Nehru dynasty, from K Kamaraj to S Nijalingappa to Y B Chavan, were sidelined.

"There is a lot of difference between Sonia and Indira Gandhi. Sonia cannot be compared to her mother-in-law. After all, Indians believe we have struggled for 150 years to get rid of foreign rule. Why then will we accept a foreigner to rule the country," asks Appasaheb Pawar.

"Today, the question haunting every Indian mind is: Don't we have any capable Indian in the Congress party to rule the country?"

But what if Pawar does get marginalised?

Laughs Appasaheb, "We come from a small village called Kathewadi in Baramati. Pawar, like all of us, is a small village boy and he did not know anything about big cities or the higher level of politics. So, I think whatever he has achieved in life is more than enough. About his future, I can only say I am sure one day he will become prime minister. But how it will happen? I don't know. It is a matter of chance."

Pawar's Last Hurrah?

Photographs: Jewella C Miranda

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