Ajit Pawar - the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and one of the state's key power brokers, certainly after the June 2023 split from uncle Sharad Pawar's side - died in a plane crash Wednesday morning. Pawar, 66, was in a private aircraft flying from Mumbai to Baramati, the family's political stronghold, and which crashed while attempting to land an hour later.
Pawar leaves behind his wife Sunetra, a Rajya Sabha MP, and two sons, Parth and Jay.
Baramati, a now-prosperous sugarcane-producing belt, was the proving ground that nurtured his political journey of over three decades.
It was here that a young Ajit Pawar, still in his uncle's far-reaching shadow, learned the game - that of politics and power - and was moulded into the hard-nosed politician who would later play a starring role in re-shaping, perhaps for all time, Maharashtra's political landscape.
And it was here, many years later, that Pawar's journey came to an end.
His political life was punctuated by dramatic turns.
In November 2019, he briefly defected to form a surprise government with the BJP... a government that lasted just 80 hours. It was the first public crack in the NCP family.
But the rupture became permanent in July 2023, when Ajit Pawar led a faction of MLAs to join the BJP-led government again... this time as Deputy Chief Minister. The move split the NCP down the middle.
Months later, the Election Commission awarded his faction the party name and symbol... leaving Sharad Pawar's loyalists to rebuild under a new banner.
Ajit Pawar's story was more than that of a powerful state leader.
It was a mirror to India's changing politics...where alliances shift, families fracture, and survival demands reinvention. In life and in legacy, Ajit Pawar was never out of the game.
Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world
