Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s ‘You Vote, I Fund’ Remark Stirs Row In Malegaon Ahead of Local-Body Elections

Pune: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar stirred a political controversy while addressing a crowd in the town of Malegaon in Pune's Baramati ahead of the upcoming local-body election. Pawar, who took to a crowded meeting hall to campaign for the upcoming Nagar Parishad elections on Saturday, during his speech, allegedly mixed promises of development with a thinly veiled threat over the outcome of the election results. 

A video of his speech is now going viral on social media, wherein Pawar was allegedly captured issuing a warning that the outcome of the vote would decide whether the government’s schemes would reach the town’s residents. During his address to the crowd, he reminded the Centre and the state together had launched numerous programmes, and that if everyone worked together, those initiatives could bring real progress to Malegaon. He urged the crowd to set aside any doubts, insisting that a clean sweep for his panel of eighteen candidates, a mix of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) members and the alliance partners, would ensure his every promise and commitment reach the area. 

“The vote is in your hands, the fund is in my hands,” he declared, asking the people to decide what they wanted. In the viral video, a tone that mixed encouragement with a thinly veiled threat, Ajit Pawar added that if voters “cross‑marked” his candidates, he would “cross‑mark” them in return, and that while the electorate held the ballot, the purse strings remained in his hands. 

“The vote is in your hands, the fund is in my hand,” he declared, asking the crowd to decide what they wanted. Pawar also tried to draw a parallel with the development of Baramati, promising that the same energy would be directed toward Malegaon if the people placed their trust in the NCP. He concluded with a pledge that the party would not waste any confidence placed in it, and that the past should be left behind like water flowing in the Ganga.

“You ensure I win 18 candidates (Mahayuti) in the Malegaon Nagar Panchayat. I will fulfill all my promises and demands, but if you cut them, I will also cut them. You have the votes, I have the funds. Now, let's see what to do,” Ajit Pawar asserted.

Meanwhile, Pawar's remarks did not go unchallenged as Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal accused the Mahayuti alliance of internal turmoil. He claimed a “gang war” was unfolding between the BJP and its partners, with the BJP allegedly “poaching” Shiv Sena leaders ahead of the local elections. Sapkal went further, suggesting that the state government had “mortgaged Maharashtra’s self‑respect” and was now taking orders from Delhi, hinting that Union Home Minister Amit Shah was pulling the strings. 

Turning to a separate controversy, Sapkal alleged that Ajit Pawar had rushed to the capital to secure a clean chit for his son Parth Pawar in the Pune land‑deal case, describing the episode as a repeated pattern of running to Delhi for protection.

Further political development in the state ahead of the local bodies election in Maharashtra is awaited.