They say all is well with the NCP. It certainly seems so, at least optically. Party boss Sharad Pawar had pulled the curtains on last week’s three-day political drama by revoking his decision to quit as the national president. Instead of selecting a successor,  the party committee had rejected the octogenarian’s desire to retire from organisational work. It also knocked down the idea of having a working president to share Pawar’s responsibility. The binge-watched soap opera continued till the afternoon of the third day, raising expectations of a few more highly-charged episodes, thanks again to Ajit Pawar, who was absent at his uncle’s media conference that made party workers gung-ho about future battles under the star-studded commander. The uncle and nephew did a lot of explaining later, and yet it appears that the latter might have to pass many more tests to clear all doubts.

Varied inferences were drawn after the party chief’s roll-back. For some it was a move scripted to show how deep-rooted Pawar’s influence was; that Pawar had no alternative in the party and the ploy worked to check a harmful rivalry in the NCP and shattered the plans, of some, to switch over to the BJP sooner or later. Others felt the leader genuinely wanted to quit, but relented reluctantly due to statewide protests demanding the rollback and the overwhelming trust of NCP workers and the warmth of leaders of other parties. All the rest set aside, the consensus is that Pawar will get the party prepared to accept the change of guard, not in the near future, but sometime after next year’s elections. He has made it clear that he would be working on a succession plan for every post and responsibility. Let’s assume that family members are also among the probables.