Kathmandu: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Ajit Pawar died on Wednesday morning in a plane crash, according to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The DGCA said a chartered aircraft flying from Mumbai to Baramati crashed at around 8:45 a.m., killing all five people on board, including the crew. The aircraft reportedly made a crash-landing near the runway threshold of Baramati Airport.
Ajit Pawar was travelling with one personal security officer (PSO), one attendant, and two crew members at the time of the accident. Further details regarding the cause of the crash are yet to be released.
Pawar was on his way to Baramati to attend a public meeting organized in connection with the district council elections. A day earlier, on Tuesday, he had participated in a meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai. Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and other senior officials were also present at the meeting.
Ajit Pawar was among the longest-serving deputy chief ministers of Maharashtra, having held the post for six non-consecutive terms. He served as deputy chief minister under various administrations led by Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray, and Eknath Shinde.
He was married to Sunetra Pawar and is survived by his two sons, Jay Pawar and Parth Pawar.
Pawar began his political career in 1982 after being elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory. In 1991, he was elected chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank. The same year, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Baramati constituency for the first time, a seat he later vacated for his uncle, Sharad Pawar.
Ajit Pawar was elected seven times to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Baramati constituency, winning the 1991 by-election and subsequently the elections in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. In November 2019, he led a split in the NCP and joined a Bharatiya Janata Party–led government as deputy chief minister. In February 2024, the Election Commission granted his faction the party name and election symbol.
