The Uddhav Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress MVA front of Maharashtra has begun positioning itself in anticipation of the Supreme Court order in the plea for disqualification of CM Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena MLAs even as the Sharad Pawar-Sena leadership’s clinically choreographed ‘whistle-blower act’ has busted, for now, the bid, reportedly to poach the MVA MLAs as part of the BJP‘s own contingency plan to deal with the SC order, some MVA insiders said.

As Ajit Pawar, senior NCP leader, who is also the nephew of Sharad Pawar, finally came before the media to refute the lingering buzz that he was planning to cross over to the BJP with his supporters, the question being asked is whether Pawar Jr was ‘neutralised’ mid-way or was he part of a larger plot that his uncle executed, by taking the Thackeray-led Sena leadership into confidence, to expose the poaching bid by the opposite side.

The plot came to a boil when Sharad Pawar held talks with Thackeray over the last weekend. Next day, Sena leader Sanjay Raut, who was also present at the Silver Oak meeting, gave a blow-by-blow insight in Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ about what Pawar had told the Sena leadership; that pressure was being mounted on “some NCP MLAs” to defect to the ruling side. And Raut’s ‘reporting’ made it a point to amplify that Pawar had asserted during the meeting that neither he nor the NCP would join hands with the BJP and that if any NCP MLAs do so, they would be acting in their individual capacity. While the ‘Saamana exclusive’ was lapped up by some to predict that Pawar Jr and about 30-40 NCP MLAs will cross over to the BJP side, in realpolitik, the message delivered was two-fold. It sounded a red alert about a poaching operation and that Pawar had apprehended some NCP MLAs are being pressured. More importantly, it advertised that anyone from the NCP crossing over to the BJP would be doing so not only against Sharad Pawar’s wishes but actually by back-stabbing the “Sahib”. Incidentally, Pawar never denied the report.

As the episode climaxed with Ajit Pawar stepping out to clear the air, many see in it traces of the 2019 act when Pawar Jr did a cameo act to take oath as Deputy CM only to lead his CM Devendra Fadnavis and the BJP up the garden path before returning to Pawar Sr. While some had then initially claimed that Ajit Pawar had split the NCP, it was later seen more as him doing a deft ‘Trojan horse act’ for his uncle when the newly-formed MVA was wondering how to get the Centre and Governor lift the President’s rule in Maharashtra. Was the latest, Ajit Pawar’s ‘reverse-swing-II’ or him getting to face a yorker from his uncle, remains shrouded in mystery.

But as MVA takes guard in anticipation of the SC verdict on the fate of the Shinde-BJP government — with none in a position to guess it right — yet there are indications that in case of a favourable verdict for the MVA, it could make the NCP, now the largest party in the Opposition coalition post-Sena defections, the lead horse of the Opposition alliance’s game-plan. The Maratha war is bound to intensify anytime before May 15.