Pawar vs Pawar: Amid claims of 'original' NCP, a poster war has erupted in Mumbai. Ajit Pawar, who rebelled against his uncle and party patriarch Sharad Pawar, received the support of 35 of the 53 MLAs in a show of strength on Wednesday when both the camps held parallel meets.
In the poster that Sharad Pawar's supporters have put up at his residence, nephew Ajit Pawar has been tagged a "traitor" and said the people would not forgive him. Posters put up by Pawar senior's camp outside his Delhi residence have drawn a parallel between the epic betrayal in the blockbuster movie Baahubali, in which Katappa, the closest companion of the protagonist, stabs him from behind.
"The whole country is watching traitors hidden among one's own. The public won't forgive such fraud people," the poster read, with silhouettes from the Baahubali poster tweaked to make the figures resemble Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar. The poster, put up by NCP's student wing, does not name anyone and mentions "gaddar" — meaning traitor — with a hashtag.
Ajit Pawar on Sunday led a vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to become deputy chief minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP government. Eight other NCP MLAs, including Chhagan Bhujbal and Hasan Mushrif, were sworn in as ministers in the Eknath Shinde cabinet.
