Therefore, whether the situation is comparable to 1989 or 1996, Pawar feels that there is still a chance to hit the bull’s eye — and he might be right. It is not a question of how many seats his party wins. The question is how many MPs are “obliged” to him across the parties. Pawar’s skills in spreading the net during elections and helping other parties’ friendly candidates is well known, as are his smart moves to defeat his own party’s candidates. In this election, his chances of becoming PM will improve only if the Congress and the BJP both get less than 150 seats and their formal allies lose heavily. In that situation, there would be a search for a candidate who can operate “out of the box”. And who else can be there “in” or “out” of the box as the situation demands, except Pawar? He just wants to repeat the experiment of the PDF, which he successfully implemented exactly 30 years ago. The actors are ready, the lights are on, the stage is set, the audience is in. The search is for the playwright. Because the final script will be written by 700 million electors.

The writer is editor of Loksatta

kumar.ketkar@expressindia.com