Ajit Pawar, Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister and the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party faction recognised by the Election Commission, died on Wednesday morning after the aircraft carrying him crash-landed in Baramati.
He was travelling from Mumbai to his home constituency to attend a public rally linked to the Zilla Parishad elections. The crash took place around 8.45 am, close to the runway threshold, officials said.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation confirmed that all five people on board the chartered aircraft were killed. The cause of the crash has not yet been established.
Only a day earlier, Pawar had attended a routine meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure in Mumbai, chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. It was the kind of engagement he rarely missed, and one that underlined how firmly he remained at the centre of the government’s functioning until the end.
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A career built on control, not caution
Few leaders in Maharashtra politics stayed in positions of authority as long, or returned to them as often, as Ajit Pawar. Over the years, he served as deputy chief minister six times, cutting across shifting alliances and rival chief ministers.
His political grounding came not from Delhi, but from the cooperative institutions of western Maharashtra. He entered public life in 1982 through a cooperative sugar factory board, a familiar route in the region. By 1991, he was chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank, a post that quietly expanded his influence across the sugar belt.
That year also marked his entry into Parliament from Baramati. He later vacated the Lok Sabha seat for his uncle, Sharad Pawar, but state politics remained his natural arena. Ajit Pawar was elected to the Maharashtra Assembly from Baramati seven times, beginning with a by-election in 1991 and continuing uninterrupted for more than two decades.
As a minister, he handled some of the most powerful departments — finance, water resources, power and rural development. Bureaucrats often described him as demanding and unsparing, but rarely indecisive. In public, he was known for blunt answers and little patience for political hedging.
Moments that altered Maharashtra’s political map
Pawar’s career was punctuated by moves that unsettled allies as much as opponents. In November 2019, his sudden decision to align with the BJP in a dawn swearing-in shook the state’s political establishment. The government collapsed within days, but the message lingered.
That instinct resurfaced in July 2023, when he led a vertical split in the NCP and joined the Eknath Shinde-led government. The move ended decades of undisputed authority within the party held by his uncle and mentor, Sharad Pawar.
In February 2024, the Election Commission recognised Ajit Pawar’s faction as the Nationalist Congress Party, awarding it the name and symbol, a decision that formally sealed the split and redefined opposition politics in Maharashtra.
A complicated legacy
Ajit Pawar’s long career was also shadowed by allegations linked to irrigation projects and cooperative banks. He denied wrongdoing and contested the cases legally, maintaining that his record would stand scrutiny.
He is survived by his wife, Sunetra Pawar, and their sons, Jay and Parth Pawar.
Direct, impatient with ambiguity, and often operating ahead of consensus, Ajit Pawar remained a dominant and divisive figure in Maharashtra politics for more than four decades. His death brings to a close a political life defined less by restraint, and more by command.