Moving Over Press Releases: In NCP Family War, Social Media is the Weapon & Supriya Sule the Leader

New Delhi: Ever since Sharad Pawar's 60-year-old nephew Ajit took the country by a storm following his overnight coup, the rift within the Nationalist Congress Party and the Pawar family has split open in the public. But rather than bickering in public or on television screens, the NCP family has chosen social media as their tool with Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule leading the pack.

It all started on Saturday morning when Sule posted her first status on WhatsApp, hours after her cousin Ajit Pawar took oath as deputy of BJP's Devendra Fadnavis while half of the country was asleep, including Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress — a fact admitted by grand old party's Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari.

Sule's first status was "party and family split", which was following by another post where she said that "she never felt so cheated in life". The status trail continued on Sunday with Pawar's MP daughter talking about her "difficult times", "standing for good values" and "victory of value".

She later posted an old interview of Devendra Fadnavis, where the BJP leader was heard saying that he will remain unmarried but will "never, never, never marry with NCP". The dig at BJP was followed by personal values, where she stressed on life-long relationship sans the hunger for power. This WhatsApp status was updated with a picture featuring Shiv Sena members, including Aaditya Thackeray.

Sule's father Sharad Pawar and cousin Ajit too were seen using social media to put forward their side of stories.

The 60-year-old legislator, who cautiously chose to keep himself away from media glare after his post midnight coup with Fadnavis, took to Twitter on Sunday thanking all the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders for congratulating him, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.

Besides the tweets, Ajit Pawar also chose to revamp his Twitter account on Sunday, adding 'Deputy Chief Minister, Maharashtra' to his bio.

The leader, who spent Saturday at his brother's home in Mumbai, posted over 11 messages in just 10 minutes, which included a pledge of loyalty to NCP and his uncle Sharad Pawar. The leader also tried to hint that the senior Pawar could also be a party in the breathtaking post-midnight events.

However, his posts were soon snubbed as "misleading and false" by Sharad Pawar, who also ditched the traditional method of sending out typed official statements to the media and chose Twitter for his instant reaction.

NCP's Maharashtra unit chief Jayant Patil, who replaced Ajit Pawar as legislative party leader on Saturday, also joined the Pawar family on social media to request state's new deputy CM to return to his uncle's fold and reminded him that he grew up under the shadow of Sharad Pawar, who is considered as the "sun in Maharashtra politics".

Nephew-MLA of former CM Gopinath Munde, Dhananjay, too requested people on Twitter not to "spread rumours" and reposed his faith in Sharad Pawar. Dhananjay, who was earlier with the BJP, is said to have played a key role in helping Ajit Pawar join hands with BJP.

Other leaders also continued to post on the political turmoil on social media, which included several Congress leaders.