In a video that has gone viral on social media, Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's younger brother Srinivas Pawar can be heard criticising him for leaving the side of Nationalist Congress Party founder Sharad Pawar.
Ajit Pawar, in July last year, joined the Eknath Shinde government along with eight MLAs, resulting in a split in the NCP.
The faction, led by him, got the party name and 'clock' symbol, while Sharad Pawar's outfit is now called NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
In the video, Srinivas Pawar (60), while talking to residents of Katewadi village in Baramati, said the NCP founder had stood with Ajit Pawar through thick and thin.
Sharad Pawar had backed Ajit Pawar's decisions, made him deputy CM four times and minister for 25 years, and it was "unworthy" of someone to speak ill about such a benefactor's old age, Srinivas Pawar claimed.
"When we (Srinivas and Ajit Pawar) spoke after the split, I told him you continue to contest the Baramati assembly seat and the Lok Sabha elections from here will be contested under (Sharad) Pawar saheb's leadership," Srinivas Pawar can be heard saying.
Asserting that he was not ready to leave the NCP founder just because he was 83, Srinivas Pawar said some of his friends advised him to side with Ajit Pawar "as the future lies with him".
"This thought that we are not at all sensitive about an elderly person is very painful for me. Anyone who has such a thought (of forsaking the elderly) is an unworthy person," the deputy CM's younger brother said in the video.
Incidentally, Ajit Pawar has often spoken about senior Pawar's age and has asked the octogenarian to retire and hand over the NCP's leadership to the next generation.
"How can someone muster the courage to ask such a person (Sharad Pawar) to retire and stay at home? I do not like such a personality," he said in a swipe at the deputy CM.
"Like every medicine has an expiry date, every relation too has an expiry date. Consider it as an expiry and move ahead in life," he said about the turn of events affecting the party and its first family since July.
Srinivas Pawar said the NCP founder made Ajit Pawar deputy CM four times but the latter continues to ask what has the octogenarian leader done for him.
"I would have been very happy to have an uncle like this," he said, adding that the rift in the party and the family seems to be a "ploy of the BJP and RSS to finish Pawar saheb's name".
"No one should think someone is weak because they have aged," he asserted.
