Ajit Pawar Goes Pink: Are Maharashtra’s Women Ready for a ‘Dada’ Makeover?
The leaders’s campaign is awash with pink in a bid to reach out to women voters and to position himself as their big brother and benefactor
Ahead of the impending assembly elections in Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party’s Ajit Pawar appears to be using colour psychology to rebrand himself as ‘dada (big brother)’ to the state’s women voters. There is pink everywhere in his campaign – from social media posts and event banners to the jackets he wears and song videos about the Ladki Bahin scheme focussed on women.
Ajit Pawar, a rebel leader from the original NCP whose founders included his uncle, Sharad Pawar, started the Jansanman Yatra from August 8 to August 31 as a part of Vidhan Sabha election campaign in Maharashtra. Across the events of this yatra — dialogues with women or public speeches – he was seen wearing pink jackets and turbans. This is not usual for male politicians in Maharashtra who like to be portrayed as muscular and masculine. And it is even more unusual for Ajit Pawar who has been criticised for his misogynistic comments in the past.
Everything on his campaign trail is awash in pink – stage decorations, vehicles, his karyakartas, banners, posters, flags and so on. The social media posts from his Facebook, Instagram accounts are filled with pink and his profile pictures on social media handles have a lot of pink. The recently released campaign song ‘Dadacha Wada (Dada’s promise)’ uses pink liberally, including in NCP flags.
“This use of pink is his attempt at rebranding himself as a pro-women leader, as dada. Ajit Pawar’s image has always been masculine — his body language, his speeches, his conversations and election campaigning were very different before. In Maharashtra’s politics, being addressed as dada means a lot in public relations.” says Sushil S, a Mumbai-based marketing and political strategy expert.
The term dada is not limited to familial relationships, it is also used to refer to someone who plays the role of a protective, big brother.
Incidentally, pink is also a fresh colour in Indian politics, it has never been used in election campaigns before, and it has no party or ideological connotation and is not associated unlike saffron which denotes right wing politics, blue for Dalit politics among others.
Ajit Pawar has also been seen with dozens of rakhis tied on his wrists, long after Rakshabandhan. “This was an attempt at emotional appeal to women to remind them that ‘dada’ is the only promising leader who could have brought the Ladki Bahin scheme to them,” says a source who is close to the leader and the NCP.
Pink And Neoliberal Colour Coding
Noopur Desai, a feminist art critic and researcher at Asia Art Archive India, says that the appropriation of pink colour representing a specific gender is a neoliberal idea, fostered mostly by the mass media and pop culture of the 1950s.
“The use of pink for women started during the 1950s when World War II ended and women went back from their war jobs to their traditional household responsibilities. But historically, from the Renaissance to the Victorian era, there was nothing binary about colours. In art, pink was used for men too, be it the detailing on their costume or other design elements,” she points out.
But, she adds, the use of colours is an effective means of sending a certain message and impacting popular thinking.
Ajit Pawar rebelled against the parent NCP with almost 40 MLAs on July 2, 2023. He joined hands with Eknath Shinde and Devendra Phadanvis, formed a Mahayuti government and became the state’s deputy chief minister. But the electorate did not respond favourably to this split, which was political but also familial, and this became apparent in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results. The leader handed over the Baramati candidature to his wife, Suntera Pawar, and this meant that she was pitched against NCP-SP’s Supriya Sule, a four time MP and Sharad Pawar’s daughter. Supriya beat her by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes.
Ajit Pawar recently admitted that it was a mistake to pit his wife against his cousin.
“This has tarnished his image among people of Baramati and the rest of Maharashtra, so he has to earn back their confidence by portraying himself as pro-women. This was necessary ahead of Vidhansabha elections,” says Sankalp Shrivastavaa, a political strategist who has worked for former united NCP.
Ajit Pawar has served as a deputy chief minister of the state five times and was also the leader of opposition in Mahavikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackary before his rebellion. He was first elected as a member of parliament in 1991 from Baramati, but resigned four months later and was elected as a member of legislative assembly. Since then, he has been playing an important role in state politics. He is also the finance minister for the state and the one to announce the Ladki Bahin Scheme in the budget session.
“He who has always been seen as masculine leader, is now worried about his party’s performance in the upcoming Vidhansabha elections. He and the NDA don’t have any political narrative, so Ladaki Bahin seems like a good currency. But it also shows how they see women voters. They might have thought that women voters are not politically sharp and they can be easily bribed with one scheme. But voters of Maharashtra are politically well aware. This scheme and its prachar might benefit the Mahayuti government, no one should underestimate it, but it will not make a significant difference,” says Shrivastava, political strategist, highlighting the Rs 270 crore of taxpayers’ money used to advertise the scheme.
Ajit Pawar has drawn flak for his derogatory remarks about women at public events. When ASHA workers had started their agitation for better work conditions and pay on January 12, 2024 at Azad Maidan in Mumbai, he lashed out at them in rage: “These women in ‘pink’ sarees are just roaming here and there and they have made our job difficult.” He also taunted his sister and member of parliament Supriya Sule in public speeches. At a press conference with NCP (united) leaders including Supriya and Sharad Pawar, he did not allow his cousin to speak. He said: ‘Supriya, you don’t speak’ and then told the press persons gathered at the site: “I am her big brother, I will speak on behalf of her.”
‘Not An Alternative For Groundwork’
Pratap Asbe, a senior journalist who has covered Maharashtra’s politics for over four decades, emphasises the fact that voters are intelligent enough to cut through the campaign noise. “The Ladki Bahin Yojana can benefit the NDA in Maharashtra in some ways but there is no alternative to ground work. Ajit Pawar can rebrand himself but his [political] trajectory, his work and speeches – all of these are in the public domain. People compare him with Sharad Pawar who has decades of ground work behind him, with an image of a decent, cultured man.”
He also points to Sharad Pawar’s progressive outlook towards women citing an incident from 1991 when he was the defence minister. A group of women tourists from Maharashtra had been caught in a badly organised tour to the north and when he heard of it, he made sure that they got the help they needed. But when a journalist sought to turn this into a news report, he had reportedly said: “Don’t write about this. If you publish this story, it will be read by the families of these women and they will not be allowed to travel again.”
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