Ajit Pawar and a few of his party colleagues rebelled against their uncle and party chief Sharad Pawar earlier this year and joined the BJP.
At the age of 83, veteran NCP leader Sharad Pawar sent a stern message to his detractors, reiterating his vitality and rejecting calls for his political retirement. Speaking at a birthday celebration for a bullock cart race held in Pune’s rural Haveli taluka, Pawar claimed he had not aged and that he still had the ability to “straighten some people out.”
The veteran politician seemed to be responding forcefully to a common narrative put forth by his opponents, which included his nephew Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, who recently pushed him to retire from politics due to his advanced age.
On July 5, Ajit Pawar made fun of his uncle by making comparisons to retirement ages in other industries. “You are 83 years old, BJP leaders retire at 75, and IAS officers retire at 60. “Are you not going to stop?” he asked party legislators and workers in Bandra during an address. “You (Sharad Pawar) bestow blessings upon us… However, you’re 83 years old; won’t you give up? Ajit Pawar continued, “Give us your blessings, and we will pray that you live a long life.