Sharad Pawar

Rahul Gandhi arrived at the residence of Sharrad Pawar in the evening and met Sharad Pawar’s daughter, party working president Supriya Sule and extended his full support with them. According to NCP leaders, Rahul Gandhi also said that Congress is 100 per cent with Sharad Pawar.

Addressing a meeting of the breakaway NCP which joined the ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government, Ajit Pawar asked: “Your age is already 83… Are you ever going to stop… There is a retirement age everywhere, IAS officers retire at 60. Even in politics, see BJP leaders retire at 75. There are examples of L. K. Advani or Murli Manohar Joshi. You just guide us and give us your blessings.”

Addressing the first meeting after the vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in its silver jubilee year, Sharad Pawar (83) said that all the parties which allied with the BJP have ultimately been destroyed politically and the Ajit Pawar-led rebels would meet the same nemesis.

“A small trailer of this was already shown to the people of the state earlier this week in Kolhapur and Pune… They are forgetting that the ordinary workers of the NCP are still with Saheb. Whatever Pawar Saheb says is the final word for us,” he said. Slamming the BJP, Patil said that it is indulging in the politics of stealing and splitting parties in the state and elsewhere for their own benefit.

"There is no alternative to Modi in the 2024 elections… that's the reality.Even Sharad Pawar Saheb has said this," Ajit Pawer said. He advised his uncle and NCP Founder-President Sharad Pawar, 83, not to remain adamant and given his senior age, should take rest and guide the party, as "he is our mentor and inspiration".

New and second Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar inaugurated his party office near Mantralaya this morning and installed a large portrait of his uncle, whom his NCP faction has also continued as the party President. Since the past three days, the NCP Ajit Pawar group has been invoking Sharad Pawar’s name for many purposes which has apparently peeved the latter.

Some of them were very close to Sharad Pawar who personally mentored, nurtured and stood by them -- a few even faced probes by Central agencies -- through thick and thin for decades. As the party grew, so did these leaders who were given plum positions within the party and in the successive governments -- with Congress from 1999 to 2014 and later in the Maha Vikas Aghadi regime of Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena from 2019-2022.

This time, the political war is being fought with an in-house rival - his nephew Ajit Anantrao Pawar, labelled as the "culprit" who broke the party to sup with the “enemy camp” of ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party.

Indicating that he may be ‘down but not out’, Sharad Pawar, 83, declared that notwithstanding the split engineered by his over-ambitious nephew, he would again rebuild the party from scratch. Asked that henceforth, “who could be the most reliable face of the party”, without batting an eyelid, Sharad Pawar raised his right hand and quipped: “Sharad Pawar!”

Addressing a crowded media conference, Ajit Pawar, 64, who took oath as Deputy CM for the 5th time, said that the entire NCP is with him and he had blessings of everyone in the party. Giving a peek into the top-secret political drama which erupted on Sunday, Pawar revealed that he had already resigned as the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s Leader of Opposition in the Assembly on last Friday.