I really adore Sharad Pawar for his political acumen. But sometimes even a strategist like him fails and it does impact the overall political contours of the national politics. For example, in the year 1999 he moved out of the Congress party on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's origin issue just before the Lok Sabha Elections. It did cost the Congress and Sharad Pawar's party the NCP dear and Sena and the BJP made a killing inspite of been inefficient. Post this mistake, Mr Pawar did realise that in politics its does not matter where one is born but the kind of Karma one does that is needed to win the heart and votes in India. His party the NCP aligned with the Congress and routed the Sena- BJP combine in the next Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. But I think leaders on both the sides suffer from political amnesia and they again went into the recent Muncipal Elections across the state of Maharashtra alone. The net effect was that the ailing Tiger which has lost all its tooth, due to his nephew and erstwhile aide Narayan Rane's revolt, got some teeth back (I sometimes feel, it was Mr Pawar, who was trying to help the Tiger to win the coveted BMC elections by not having a tie-up with the Congress). I really hope that the Sena does some work unlike last time in the BMC and improves the life of common Mumbaikars. May be this is the last time for the cub to show that he can really become a Tiger and keep the Shiv Sena alive into the next decade.
