Mumbai: Early this evening, Sharad Pawar, the chief of the NCP, will meet with his party’s legislators in Mumbai where he is expected to announce that he has accepted the resignation of his nephew, Ajit, as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.  To prep the scene, Mr Pawar met this afternoon with Ajit as well as Congress chief minister Prithiraj Chavan – the NCP and Congress co-govern Maharashtra. On Tuesday evening, Ajit Pawar announced that he is quitting because of allegations that he masterminded a 72.000 crore scam in the state’s irrigation department.

Ajit’s decision to give up the second-most powerful position in the government is a big gamble. Flanked by other NCP ministers, he wants to pressure the Congress to drop Prithviraj Chavan as the state’s Chief Minister. He also wants to prove to his uncle that his clout is muscly enough to merit recognition and that he should be chosen as Sharad Pawar’s political heir. That post is usually assumed to be reserved for Mr Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule. (In resignation, Ajit Pawar’s gamble for the big league)

Both uncle and nephew have on record said that there is no rift between them. Their actions signal the opposite. After Ajit resigned, all other 19 NCP ministers in the Maharashtra government sent in their resignation letters to a party official in a somewhat gratuitous show of solidarity. NCP state legislators also held a meeting with Ajit on Wednesday, though the party’s central leadership told the media that session had been cancelled. At that meeting, MLAs asked Ajit to withdraw his resignation, but said Mr Pawar, as president, should take the final call.

He was quick to underscore that would be the case. In a series of statements, Mr Pawar attempted downsize his nephew’s stature. He said “senior party leadership” would decide Ajit’s future, and said more than once that his permission had been sought – and sanctioned – before Ajit wrote his letter of resignation to the Chief Minister.

Sources say that Ajit also wants his party to pull out of the government and provide external support to the Congress in Maharashtra, a possibility Mr Pawar has ruled out. 53-year-old Ajit believes that the NCP must grow its supporter base in Maharashtra, so that it can stop playing second fiddle to the Congress as its junior partner in government. As long as they remain wedded, he feels, the NCP will not be perceived – even within its own ranks- as a force capable of leading the state alone. Younger MLAs in the state support him.

His ambition to lead the party was undisguised when the Congress and NCP won the election in 2009. He was livid that Mr Pawar chose another NCP senior, Chhagan Bhujbal, as Deputy Chief Minister. After a prolonged sulk, Ajit succeeded in replacing Mr Bhujbal, propelled by the over-whelming support of the party’s state legislators.