The sudden death of an influential leader has left a political vacuum in India’s richest state.
Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, died on Wednesday in a plane crash along with four others.
Maharashtra’s political landscape is notoriously complex – a web of shifting alliances, regional loyalties and rivalries. And for decades, Ajit Pawar navigated it with a mixture of pragmatism and shrewdness, swiftly rising through the ranks.
Yet, beneath the public triumphs, his journey was also deeply personal: a struggle to emerge out of the formidable shadow of his uncle Sharad Pawar – the founder of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and a dominant figure in Indian politics.
Born in 1959, Ajit Pawar entered politics in the 1980s under his uncle’s mentorship, particularly focusing on the Pawar family stronghold of Baramati, a rural area in western Maharashtra where sugar cooperatives, banks and local institutions helped secure both economic influence and political loyalty.
From an early age, Ajit Pawar was seen as the uncle’s visible heir. But he was determined to forge his own path.
To many, Sharad Pawar represented old-school authority: patient and strategic, he was known for his coalition-building skills and political instincts. Ajit Pawar, on the other hand, focused on regional power, governance and control over local political networks.