Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan, the other three regions, became sort of colonies of the sugar empire. The so called backlog of development was because of this imbalance. Till the end of the ’80s this internal colonial structure worked. Thereafter widespread discontent in the less developed parts of Maharashtra began to manifest itself in politics.

The first Machiavellian stroke Sharad Pawar delivered was to his own Congress(S) chief minister, Vasantdada Patil. Pawar formed a parallel front (an alliance known as the Progressive Democratic Front) with the then Janata Party. The new front destabilised the government, which was also a coalition of the Congress(S) and Congress(I). Though the Congress was split after Indira Gandhi’s defeat, both Congresses retained the essential character of the original party. Pawar’s front, however, brought in most of the opposition of the right and the left (socialists and the Jan Sangh who had dissolved themselves in the JP-led Janata Party).

It is since then that the rural base of the Congress began fracturing. Pawar’s government was forced out in ’80, when Indira Gandhi came back to power and Yashwantrao Chavan, Pawar’s mentor, joined her. Pawar, however preferred to carry on with the party he had formed. It is only in ’86, two years after Rajiv Gandhi came to power, that he realised that there was no scope to come to power. So he joined the Congress under Rajiv. Within 18 months, he had manipulated the power structure to become chief minister again. However, he could not win Rajiv’s heart, and the loyalists, backed by Rajiv himself, tried to destabilise his chief ministership.

... contd.