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 Failure to capture political power cost him a lot. Political power gives you enormous nuisance value and also the means to patronize. It gives you means to oblige individuals and widen your base. Political power could have helped Joshi build a team by offering some position of influence to his followers who had ambition and competence to grow. As they grew, Joshi too would have gained in stature. One can see this happening with most other leaders. But in absence of any power, this could not happen with Joshi. There was no incentive for any young aspiring leaders to join Joshi; they would have always remained just followers. The electoral politics in India is quite complex and has almost always baffled experts who claim to understand the pulse of the voters. Their prophecies have proved wrong more often than not. In hindsight, analysts argue about various trends using their mumbo-jumbo, but outcome of elections in India has generally defied logic. Many great leaders like Mahatma Phule and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had suffered defeats in elections. Candidate’s caste, religion, muscle and money power, family heritage, some local identity issue or some kind of a national wave for one leader or the other seemed to matter more in the elections, than competence, commitment or character of the individual candidate. One can only say that politics seems to have been the least satisfactory aspect of Sharad Joshi’s overall work. Q

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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage