NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar celebrated his 84th birthday on Thursday with members of his family and well-wishers, including estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Pawar, a former Union Minister, cut the birthday cake with a sword at his 6, Janpath residence here, surrounded by party workers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, NCP chief Ajit Pawar and other prominent leaders greeted the octogenarian leader on his birthday.
Ajit Pawar, who parted ways with the senior Pawar last year and handed out a resounding defeat to the veteran leader in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls, was present at the birthday celebrations along with his family members.
Member of parliament in Rajya Sabha and wife of Ajit Pawar and son Paarth, paid visit to the senor leader accompanied by some of the senior leaders including NCP, Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare.
"We came today to wish him on his birthday," said Bhujbal, who once was quite close to former Maharashtra chief minister.
Born on December 12, 1940, Pawar took the political plunge while still in college and became a protege of veteran Congress leader Yashwantrao Chavan.
A four-term Maharashtra chief minister, the senior Pawar has also served as Defence Minister and Union Agriculture Minister.
He has reportedly parted ways with Congress last year 1999 regarding the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi to form Nationalist Congress Party.
More than two-thirds MLAs belonging to NCP backed Mr. Ajit Pawar who had gone into merger recently with the Shiv Sena-BJP government where as deputy chief minister, so NCP experienced bifurcation in July last.
Later, the Election Commission recognized the Ajit Pawar group as the real NCP and asked the faction headed by Sharad Pawar to choose a new name for the party and an election symbol.
The BJP-led MahaYuti coalition of Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP trounced the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT, and NCP-SP in the Maharashtra assembly elections last month.
The MahaYuti won 235 seats, while the opposition alliance was restricted to 46 seats in the 288-member assembly.
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