Ajit Pawar, the longest serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra non-consecutively, was killed in a charter plane crash in Baramati this morning. Four others on board his plane, including two crew members, did not survive, a senior DGCA official said on Wednesday.
Pawar, 66, is married to Sunetra Pawar, with whom he has two sons, Jay and Parth Pawar.
Nephew of veteran politician and NCP founder Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar was one of Maharashtra’s key power brokers, certainly after the June 2023 split from uncle Sharad Pawar’s side.
He served as Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra for six terms within various governments. He had worked as deputy chief minister in the cabinets of Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi remembered Pawar as a mass leader with deep grassroots.
In a post on X, the Prime Minister said Pawar was widely respected for his hard work and dedication to public service in Maharashtra.
“Shri Ajit Pawar Ji was a leader of the people, having a strong grassroots level connect. He was widely respected as a hardworking personality at the forefront of serving the people of Maharashtra. His understanding of administrative matters and passion for empowering the poor and downtrodden were also noteworthy. His untimely demise is very shocking and saddening. Condolences to his family and countless admirers. Om Shanti,” the ‘X’ post from PM Modi said.
When ‘Dada shook up Sharad Pawar’s party
Ajit Pawar’s political life was punctuated by dramatic turns. The most dramatic was however the 2019 split in NCP – one that moulded him into a hard-nosed politician who played a starring role in re-shaping Maharashtra’s political landscape.
In November 2019, he engineered a split in the NCP and joined a government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and became the Deputy Chief Minister. It was the first public crack in the NCP family.
Days ago, Pawar briefly defected to form a surprise government with the BJP – a government that lasted just 80 hours.
Months later, the Election Commission awarded his faction the party name and symbol… leaving Sharad Pawar’s loyalists to rebuild under a new banner.
Political journey
Ajit Pawar began his political career in 1982 as board member of a cooperative sugar factory. In 1991, he was elected as the chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank.
The same year, he won his parliamentary election from Baramati, the family’s political stronghold. He vacated the Baramati Parliamentary constituency for his uncle Sharad Pawar.
Pawar was a seven-time MLA from the Baramati Assembly constituency. He first won in a 1991 by-election and subsequently in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014.