In a blow to the Mahayuti alliance in the Maharashtra Lok Sabha election, Ajit Pawar’s NCP emerged as the biggest casualty of the three allies – losing three out of the four seats it contested, including the high-profile Baramati. The BJP won nine seats, and the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena bagged seven out of 15 seats.    

This election marked the party’s first poll battle after its split from Sharad Pawar’s NCP, branding itself as the “real NCP” – a claim even acknowledged by the Election Commission. But with the party left electorally parched and assembly elections looming in November, Pawar has set out on a high-stakes image overhaul.

Between July 1 and September 30, Pawar spent over Rs 30 lakh to sponsor over 3,500 ads of himself on social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram – emerging as the top individual spender on Meta ads for the three months. These ads published from his personal accounts come at a time when uncertainty looms over the future of Ajit Pawar’s NCP within the Mahayuti alliance.    

Pawar was not only the top spender but the only individual politician among the top 10 ad spenders on Meta in Maharashtra between July and September. The BJP’s Maharashtra unit ranked fifth with Rs 26.15 lakh spent on Meta ads during the same period, while the NCP page ranked 10th with Rs 11.81 lakh worth of expenditure on social media ads. 

The politician also hired political consultant Naresh Arora of Design Boxed around the same time. Arora is known for spearheading election campaigns for the Congress in states like Karnataka and Rajasthan. Besides the splurge on personal branding, the content of Pawar’s ad also recorded a significant shift in these months, which were earlier erratic and less frequent.

This comes at a time when ally and fellow deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has publicly attributed the alliance’s poor performance to the NCP’s “inability” to convert support into votes for its allies. Meanwhile, the RSS has said that “workers of the BJP have not liked joining hands with the NCP”.

‘Ajit dada’ branding 

A bulk of over 3,500 ads sponsored by Pawar were published in August and September. A significant chunk of these ads promoted the government’s flagship Maajhi Ladki Behen Yojana alongside pictures of Pawar. 

The scheme promises Rs 1,500 per month to women aged between 21 and 65 years of age and those who have family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh. The scheme was launched by Pawar, who is also the finance minister, in the monsoon budget of the Maharashtra assembly. In the videos promoted by Pawar’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, this scheme is projected as solely his promise to the people and not the Mahayutis. 

But the ad that clocked the most number of impressions is a simple image of Pawar promoting the scheme. It has over 1 million impressions. His team spent between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40, 000 on the ad that ran in late August. 

Another ad with high impressions is a minute-long video similar to a traditional TV advertisement. In the clip, a father praises his daughter’s new clothes, asking her who bought them, and she replies: “Ajit dada (brother)”. In the next sequence, his wife asks him to sign a document of a joint investment of Rs 1,500. The man then asks where the money is coming from, and the wife replies: “Ajit dada”. The ad ran between September 2 and 29 at an estimated cost of Rs 45,000 to Rs 50,000.

The pink factor

The colour pink dominates the themes of these ads, similar to Pawar’s ongoing election campaign. From the posters to the stage decor, headgear of his supporters, and even his own attire, pink is everywhere – ostensibly to appeal to the women voters. 

The man who would seldom wear anything except white kurtas or a waistcoat now exclusively wears kurtas, shirts, and jackets in different shades of pink. However, he refers to them as maroon and not pink.  

In one of the ads, Pawar is seen with women from Jan Sanman Yatra, a state-wide campaign he launched in August, aiming to reinvent the party’s image and promote welfare schemes focused on women, youth, farmers, and minorities.   

In the picture, Pawar is seen sitting in the back of an auto with a woman, while the vehicle is also being driven by a woman in a pink saree. “Pink is power,” said the caption. Meanwhile, in a separate video, several women are tying him rakhi, and it is captioned: “Dada is always a strong supporter for the rights of sisters.”

While 92.2 percent of the total amount he spent on ads is targeted towards all genders, 7.5 percent, or 679 ads, published on Pawar’s personal accounts particularly target those identified as women. 

In a recent India Today event, Arora shed light on the party’s pink strategy, saying that the colour would resonate with women. He said that firstly, some of the flagship schemes of the Mahayuti government are targeted towards women, and pink is traditionally associated with them. Secondly, Pawar wore a pink coloured jacket while announcing these schemes in the monsoon budget. Now, the party is positioning him as the leader delivering these schemes. 

In the conversation, on a question about how he managed to get Pawar to comply despite his purported nonchalance, Arora said “only the secure politicians listen to anyone,” and Pawar is aware of his shortcomings.

Notably, Pawar had come under fire in May 2021 when, in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, the Maharashtra government allocated nearly Rs 6 crore for appointing a private agency to handle Pawar’s social media accounts. After backlash, the government order was cancelled, with Pawar saying that there was “no need to appoint any external agency to handle the social media of his office”.

Music videos, WhatsApp channels

Beyond traditional ads, Pawar has invested in multimedia ads, including music videos. His ad with the second highest impression is the trailer of a song titled “Dada cha wada (brother’s promise)”. The video features Maharashtrians in pink turbans, topis, and sarees, cheering for Pawar. He spent between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 on the ad that ran from September 6 to 8.

The full music video was launched and promoted from Pawar’s social media handles soon after the trailer was published. He spent a whopping sum of about Rs 1.25 lakh to Rs 1.50 lakh on the entire campaign. In the last seven days of September, Pawar spent Rs 4,63,439 on advertising on Facebook.

The politician’s WhatsApp channel is also being heavily promoted as an ad on his social media handles and has raked in high engagements. 

Among Pawar’s other ads is a video of journalist Rajdeep Sardesai questioning him about the BJP leaders indulging in hate speeches against Muslims. In the video, the politician insists that he is secular and with the BJP for “development”. He emphasised that the party follows the ideology of Shiv-Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar and will never give it up. He has repeated this statement several times since the Lok Sabha polls, purportedly in an effort to retain the NCP’s original vote bank. 

On Pawar’s social media makeover, political analyst Amitabh Tiwari told Newslaundry that if the virtual personality is too different from the real persona, “it could create a disconnect”.

“It usually takes time for a person’s brand to change. This is a very short turnaround time that started after the Lok Sabha elections. You also have to be clear about what the persona is you are trying to create, as the virtual image being created should not be different from your real image. Ajit, for one, is generally seen as a shy person. Maybe consultants received public feedback that he needs to connect more with the public.”

Tiwari said that cash transfer schemes, such as Ladki Behen, are usually effective to appeal to the undecided voters, which Maharashtra has a lot of. “The pink clothes and the focus on Ladki Behen are to appeal to the women voters who are now voting more independently than ever. Since cash transfer schemes are tangible, they have more of an immediate impact on the voter,” he said.

Part of the image makeover is also to appeal to Muslims, he said, pointing to Pawar’s recent announcement to field 10 percent Muslim candidates.

“The biggest issue with the NCP is that if you see the overall compensation with the undivided NCP, one fourth of the voters are Muslim. When the party split, this one-fourth did not go to Mahayuti as they do not generally like the BJP. So you lose 4 percent of the 16 percent automatically. This impacted the NCP - Ajit Pawar’s performance in the Lok Sabha polls.”

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