Who will inherit Sharad Pawar's legacy?

However, as the venerable R.K. Laxman put it in his political cartoon that time, the Maratha leader mounted the horse to New Delhi, came, saw and 'concurred' - before late prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

An equally venerable astrologer in Mumbai - whom Pawar reportedly used to consult occasionally - had shown the planetary writings to him in the skies - "You will become anything but PM..."

Little wonder then that in the run up to the 2014 general elections, Pawar made very practical observations on his own prospects for the top job: "We just don't have the requisite numbers... We are aware of our limitations..."

After the Rao government followed a brief season of political instability at the centre - followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA rule, Pawar quit the Congress in a huff protesting Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins and later founded the NCP with secular credentials.

After having partnered with the Congress in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2004 and 2009 - raising many a political eyebrows, the NCP has yet to cast off the state party tag.