For more than four decades the ruling clique at the centre and in Maharashtra have kow-towed to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and allowed him to bully anyone he pleases. But when things seemed to have changed for the better after Rahul Gandhi's open defiance and Sena's subsequent turnaround on banning Shah Rukh Khan's film, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has postrated before Thackeray. He went there to plead with Thackeray to withdraw his threat not to allow Australian cricketers play in IPL-3.

Not only did Pawar forget that he is no longer BCCI president and that as agriculture minister he has more pressing business of checking food prices, he also forgot that he was  part of the union council of ministers and that his colleague in charge of the home ministry, P Chidambaram, had already promised full security to the Australians.

Pawar took along BCCI president Shahshank Manohar and compromised his position too as Thackeray issued a royal diktat: Give me full detail of the Australian players playing in IPL-3 and then I will take a call. There we go. Pawar has, by his quirky politics, invited the aged tiger to roar and seek compliance to his whims, which was completely unwarranted. Would Pawar please explain why he chose to surrender before a man who should actually be prosecuted for his similar actions, as the Bombay high court suggested a few days ago?