MUMBAI: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar had his first brush, literally, with politics as a four-day-old (rpt four-day-old). The former Union minister, who has completed 51 years in electoral politics, revealed this at a book release event here Tuesday evening. Pawar said he was just four days old when his mother Shardabai, who was elected as chairperson of the local municipal works committee in Pune in 1938, carried him in a state transport bus to Pune where she was scheduled to cast her vote.

Pawar said Shardabai was the driving force behind her seven sons and four daughters, all of whom acquired graduate degrees in various disciplines like law, engineering, architecture, metallurgy and agronomy. The Marathi book, 'Mu Po Aai', edited by journalist Sandeep Kale, has articles by 30 Maharashtrian editors about their mothers.

Pawar has penned the foreword for the tome. Pawar also recalled that as Defence Minister he insisted on inducting women into armed forces despite repeated rebuffs from the three services chiefs to his plans.