Birthday buddies Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar prepare for crucial poll battle
The fate of the two colleagues, born on July 22, are linked, as both face a tough political battle in the build-up to the Maharashtra assembly elections
Mumbai: They were political rivals until a few years ago, then became friends while remaining on opposite sides of the political divide. Now, they are colleagues as deputy chief ministers in the Mahayuti government, and their fates are linked as both face a tough political battle in the build-up to the Maharashtra assembly elections.
They also share their birthdays. On Monday, Devendra Fadnavis turned 54, while Ajit Pawar turned 65. Marathi news channels and social media were flooded with messages from supporters greeting both leaders throughout the day.
Pawar, known as Ajit dada among supporters, celebrated his birthday at his Pune residence. He seems to have been isolated in the Pawar family after he split the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2023, switched sides to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance and fielded his wife Sunetra opposite his cousin Supriya in the family’s pocket borough of Baramati in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.
On Monday, Pawar cut a cake in the presence of his mother, wife, and sons Parth and Jay. He also posted a picture of his wife giving him a white rose on his birthday.
Later in the day, the 65-year-old toured the Ahmednagar district, where he attended four functions aimed at reaching out to women voters. The NCP, in an all new pink hue, is attempting to project itself as a women-friendly party ahead of the assembly polls. Earlier this month, Pawar, as finance minister, announced several sops for women in the state budget, including a monthly allowance of ₹1,500 under the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana.
Donning an onion-pink jacket over his white kurta, Pawar interacted with the beneficiaries of the schemes and explained the idea behind the decision. He tried to give it an emotional touch, saying that women, who take care of the entire family, often ignore their personal expenses due to poor financial conditions.
“This scheme is to fulfill their personal expenses,” he said. “We understand the grief of the poor.” This is the first time Pawar is doing such an exercise in his entire political career, although he has held the finance portfolio for the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, Pawar’s supporters celebrated his birthday at several places in the state, hailing him as the future chief minister. At one such function in Pune on Sunday, party workers presented him with a cake with the chief ministerial oath as the icing: “I, Ajit Pawar, take oath as chief minister of Maharashtra…”
Also eyeing the CM’s chair is Pawar’s co-deputy chief minister, Fadnavis, who chose to spend his birthday quietly at his official residence at Malabar Hill. “He normally avoids any public functions on his birthdays,” said a close aide. “He interacted with children in a school through video-conferencing. Besides, he spent the day with family members and met party colleagues who visited his house to greet him.”
That Fadnavis and Pawar share a birthday is quite the coincidence. In the run-up to the 2014 assembly elections, Fadnavis was the most vocal opposition leader as the BJP went all guns blazing over the irrigation scam, which damaged the reputation of Pawar and the NCP in the state, especially in their bastion of western Maharashtra.
Things, however, changed later as Fadnavis took over as chief minister in 2014.
The animosity was replaced by diplomacy and later a strategic friendship, which became evident when Ajit Pawar tried to split the NCP after the 2019 assembly elections, when his uncle Sharad Pawar took the initiative to float a coalition of three parties – the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena – to keep the BJP away from power. Ajit Pawar’s rebellion failed as most NCP MLAs did not rally behind him. The government lasted less than 80 hours, as Ajit Pawar quit as deputy chief minister and returned to the party.
He didn’t give up, though. In 2023, Pawar launched a rebellion within the NCP again and was successful this time, as a majority of the party’s MLAs (40 out of 53) went with him as he switched over to the BJP-led ruling alliance. In this entire period, Fadnavis stood behind him.
BJP insiders say Fadnavis was in favour of a split in the NCP rather than the Shiv Sena to bring down the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. However, Eknath Shinde managed to garner the support of a majority of Shiv Sena MLAs and split the party in 2022, thus scoring over Ajit Pawar.
However, the synergy between Fadnavis and Pawar in the three-party alliance is quite visible. And so is their silent power tussle with chief minister Shinde, who has managed to assert his authority in the Mahayuti government.
Following the Lok Sabha debacle, in which the Mahayuti managed to win just 17 of Maharashtra’s 48 seats, there have been voices in Sangh Parivar that the BJP should dump Ajit Pawar since its brand value was affected by the inclusion of”corrupt” NCP leaders as ministers. Fadnavis, however, seems to have thrown his weight behind his friend, pointing out that without the NCP, countering Sharad Pawar in western Maharashtra would be difficult.
As the political arena in the state is heating up with assembly elections barely two months away, the rivals-turned-friends have their task cut out. Winning the election is crucial, with both their political futures at stake.
With inputs from Faisal Malik