Ajit and family turn up at Sharad Pawar's birthday celebrations

Nationalist Congress Party-SP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday turned 84 and celebrated his birthday with members of his family and well-wishers, including estranged nephew and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Pawar, a former Union Minister, cut the birthday cake with a sword at his 6, Janpath residence in New Delhi, surrounded by party workers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, NCP chief Ajit Pawar and other prominent leaders greeted the octogenarian leader on his birthday.

Ajit Pawar, who parted ways with the senior Pawar last year and handed out a resounding defeat to the veteran leader in the recent Maharashtra assembly polls, was present at the birthday celebrations along with his family members.

Rajya Sabha member Sunetra Pawar, the wife of Ajit Pawar and their son Paarth, visited the senior leader along with NCP leaders Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Tatkare.

"We came today to wish him (Sharad Pawar) on his birthday,” Bhujbal, once a close confidant of the former Maharashtra chief minister, said.

Born on December 12, 1940, Pawar took the political plunge while in college and became a protege of veteran Congress leader Yashwantrao Chavan.

A four-term Maharashtra chief minister, the senior Pawar has also served as Defence Minister and Union agriculture minister.

Pawar parted ways with the Congress in 1999 over the issue of the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi to form the Nationalist Congress Party.

In July last year, the NCP witnessed a split with more than two-thirds of the party MLAs supporting Ajit Pawar, who joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government as deputy chief minister.

Later, the Election Commission recognised the Ajit Pawar-led group as the real NCP and asked the Sharad Pawar-led faction to select a new name for the party and an election symbol.

In the Maharashtra assembly elections last month, the BJP-led Mahayuti coalition comprising Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, Ajit Pawar-led NCP trounced the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT and NCP-SP.

The Mahayuti won 235 seats, while the opposition alliance was restricted to 46 seats in the 288-member assembly.