UPHILL TASK FOR AJIT PAWAR

Having burnt bridges with uncle Sharad and being the odd one out in the Mahayuti, deputy CM Ajit Pawar is trying to regain his standing by projecting a friendlier avatar

- Dhaval S. Kulkarni

There is a touch of pink to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar these days. Whether in his jackets or on hoardings, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president can be seen exuding a softer hue. The shade is believed to be more appealing to women voters, whose interests his party says they have pandered to with the recent Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, which provides a monthly dole of Rs 1,500 to around 25 million women. The Mahayuti government may have announced the scheme but since Ajit handles the finance portfolio, his party claims the credit must go to him. He is also seen smiling and interacting with women, a break from his otherwise gruff persona. As Maharashtra heads towards an assembly election, to be announced any day, he has also embarked on a statewide Jan Sanman Yatra to rally support and reach out to the masses.

What is behind the new Ajit Pawar? It is part of an image makeover exercise for which the NCP chief had engaged image consultant Naresh Arora of the political campaign management firm DesignBoxed in July. More than a sartorial overhaul aimed at cultivating an auxiliary constituency, Ajit needs to recover from the beating that his image has taken—from the time he opportunistically allied with Devendra Fadnavis for a three-day stint in power in 2019 to forsaking his uncle Sharad Pawar in 2023 and walking away with the party name and symbol in exchange for a deputy chief ministership.

Except that now he comes across as the odd one out in the ruling alliance. The BJP and Sena are seen as “natural” allies, given their convergence on Hindutva issues. Ajit, on the other hand, was brought in for clear strategic reasons—to break the original Sharad Pawar-led party, as it had managed to do with the Shiv Sena, and also in the belief that Shinde alone would not be able to deliver in the Lok Sabha election.