Sharad Pawar, president of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and a towering figure in Maharashtra politics for over five decades, has launched a scathing attack on Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar for openly linking development funds to electoral support, declaring that such overt financial inducement is fundamentally inappropriate and corrosive to the democratic ethos.

Addressing reporters in his stronghold of Baramati in Pune district on Thursday, the veteran leader pointed out that an unhealthy competition has emerged among political functionaries to promise ever-larger sums from the state treasury, stressing that voters must be approached on the strength of concrete work accomplished rather than through the lure of monetary allocations that risk turning elections into transactional exercises.

The controversy erupted after Ajit Pawar, who heads the rival NCP faction aligned with the ruling Mahayuti alliance, told a public gathering in Malegaon village of Baramati tehsil last week that funds would flow generously to the area if his party’s candidates were elected in the upcoming local body polls, but warned that rejection at the ballot box would be met with equal rejection in terms of developmental projects—a statement that has ignited fierce criticism just days before the December 2 municipal and panchayat elections across Maharashtra.

Also Read: Sharad Pawar Claims Bihar Voters Influenced By Rs 10,000 Cash Transfer; BJP Dismisses Allegations

Sharad Pawar argued that reducing electoral appeal to financial bargaining erodes the very foundation of representative governance, questioning the ethical propriety of leaders who treat public money as personal leverage and asserting that the singular obsession with winning at any cost has led to the normalization of such unbecoming rhetoric in public discourse.

Separately, the NCP (SP) supremo expressed deep dissatisfaction with the state government’s relief measures for farmers devastated by unseasonal rains and floods, noting that merely deferring loan recoveries for one year offers only temporary respite and falls far short of the substantial direct financial assistance required to rehabilitate cultivators who have suffered extensive crop damage and economic ruin.

Also Read: Unidentified Persons Booked After Rohit Pawar Demonstrates Counterfeit Aadhaar Card