Ajit Pawar obituary: A perpetual CM-in-waiting, a leader Maharashtra loved to fear

Maharashtra on Wednesday (January 28) morning plunged into shock and profound grief with the death of the state’s Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar in a plane crash in his pocket borough of Baramati in the state's Pune district. He was 66. For many, he would perhaps remain the best chief minister Maharashtra had never had.

It was only a day before the tragedy that Pawar had attended a cabinet meeting and was seen to be in a joyous mood, having reconciled himself to his party's drubbing in the recently concluded urban local body elections in the western state.

Also read: Ajit Pawar's death: PM Modi calls NCP chief 'leader of the people'

Even in Maharashtra's deeply polarised political set-up, the death was mourned across the spectrum.

“If he said yes to a task, he would go to any length to fulfil it,” Arvind Sawant, a Lok Sabha member of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), said, remembering and defining Ajit. “But if he said no, it meant that work can't be and won’t be done; he would be very clear about it.”

A man of words, Ajit Pawar was one leader whom the people and bureaucracy feared as well as loved. He would be an early to rise and kickstart his day, as this writer has witnessed on several occasions. A workaholic, he would usually start his day at 5.30 am and work late until midnight.

Eknath Shinde, the other deputy chief minister and Shiv Sena leader, called it "a mountainous calamity.”

Everyone's 'Dada'

Fondly called "Dada" (elder brother), Ajit, despite the many controversies surrounding him, was known as an able administrator, much like his heavyweight politician uncle Sharad Pawar.

Also read: Ajit Pawar plane crash: Mamata hints at conspiracy, calls for SC-monitored probe

In nearly three decades of his innings in the state legislature, and his long career as a minister in the Maharashtra government, Ajit handled finance, water resources, power, rural development, and many other portfolios with equal proficiency, steering difficult projects and implementing them in record time. Ajit was a disciplinarian, though some of his public statements portrayed him to be otherwise.

A man of words, he was one leader whom the people and bureaucracy feared as well as loved. He would be an early to rise and kickstart his day, as this writer has witnessed on several occasions. A workaholic, he would usually start his day at 5.30 am and work late until midnight, in a career spanning close to four decades.

Early life and career

Born to Sharad’s elder brother Anantrao Pawar on July 22, 1959, Ajit Anantrao Pawar started his political journey when he was elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory in Baramati and the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank way back in the late 1980s, before being elected to the state legislature for the first time in 1991.

Also read: Ajit Pawar fell short of becoming CM despite serving six times as deputy

Growing under the tutelage of Sharad, though different in his style and approach towards politics, Ajit never lost an election from Baramati until his death on Wednesday. Ajit in the state, Sharad's daughter Supriya Sule at the centre, was how the senior Pawar’s distribution of work was within a united NCP, a party that Ajit had begun to organisationally run since 2004, when Pawar senior became the Union agriculture minister.

A chief minister in waiting

His close aides say Ajit was as familiar with the urban economy and issues as much as he was with the rural economy. Rustic, not suave, he would easily quote local adages in his stirring speeches in the assembly during the debates, something that is a rarity in today’s politics.

Some of his close aides would always recount that, though he came across as a tough politician, he had an emotional and sensible side, mostly rooted in his early grassroots politics. Baramati and its people did not have any wall between them and Ajit, like with Pawar senior.

Also Read: Ajit Pawar fell short of becoming CM despite serving six times as deputy

Ajit was, however, a perpetual chief minister-in-waiting. He had a golden opportunity to become the CM when the NCP after its formation in 1999 won more seats in the Assembly elections but ceded the seat to its ally the Congress party. It was Vilasrao Dehmukh, who became the CM then, and Chhagan Bhujbal became the deputy; it was much later that Ajit was elevated to the deputy chief ministerial status, and remained one until the end.

Coup, split, and rebellion

Ajit first raised a rebellion against his uncle in 2022, but it was doused by Sharad. In an early morning coup, he had joined Fadnavis to take the oath as deputy CM even as the Sharad-led NCP remained in the dark over his sudden tilt towards the BJP.

However, in July 2023, he finally severed his political relations with his uncle and split the NCP, on the heels of the split by Shinde in the Shiv Sena, and joined ranks with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He became the deputy chief minister, holding the finance portfolio. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, his faction suffered heavily and could win only one seat in Maharashtra, but in the Assembly elections that followed, he managed to recover his ground.

"Dada" finally came out of the shadows of his uncle to forge his own path in 2023, with all major party leaders joining Ajit to join the BJP-led government. That coup defined the senior Pawar's end of hegemony in the party that had splintered from the Congress in 1999, and emergence of Ajit on his own.

The battle between the two NCP factions over who controls the party and its political mascot is before the Supreme Court, but in the recently concluded urban local body elections, both the NCP factions joined hands once more to contest Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporation elections together, only to face a severe drubbing by the BJP.

Beyond the rivalry

As recently as two days ago, there were talks that the Ajit and Sharad Pawar factions of the NCP would jointly contest the elections on one symbol (a clock), thereby raising the spectre that the two factions might contemplate burying the hatchet and finding an amicable solution to their rift.

Also Read: Unfazed by Pune setback, NCP factions to join hands for zilla parishad elections

Despite his political rivalry, Ajit did not sever his relations within the family, while he still maintained publicly that Sharad remained his mentor and a reverential figure, and Supriya his dear sister, he continued to play ball with the BJP despite being alert to the fact that over time, the saffron party would badly dent his party by luring his local leaders to its fold.

His demise in the crash has now left both the NCP factions in limbo, given Sharad's advanced age. There is no leader worthy enough to fill in the shoes of Ajit in his NCP faction.

Mired in controversies

Ajit’s long career was marred by many serious allegations of graft and political overreach and controversies, among them being the irrigation project irregularities from 2007 onwards and controversies around the Maharashtra State Central Co-operative Bank to misappropriation in cooperative sugar factories, though he overcame every challenge.

In fact, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had levelled serious allegations of financial graft against him, but later went silent on Ajit after he split the NCP and became a BJP ally in Maharashtra.

As his party’s chief, he took disciplinary action against the party office bearers linked to criminal cases, asserting a zero tolerance towards unlawful conduct within his ranks.