Ajit Pawar, who died in a plane crash Wednesday morning, is being cremated in Baramati - his family's political stronghold and the birthplace of his own career - with full state honours. This will be followed by three days of state mourning
Here are the top points in this story so far:
- Thousands of Ajit Pawar supporters and NCP loyalists had gathered ahead of a funeral procession that began at 9 am and was to end at Baramati's Vidya Pratishthan ground. Chants of 'long live, Ajit Pawar' rang out but, less than an hour, later authorities decided the body would be taken directly to the cremation site in view of the massive crowd.
- According to the original plan, the procession was to pass through five locations before reaching the Vidya Pratishthan ground but, because of 'the deteriorating condition of the body' and the rapidly increasing crowds, the last rites will likely be conducted sooner.
- Pawar's close family – his wife, Sunetra, and sons Parth and Jay, all of whom are being spoken of as candidates to take over leadership of his NCP faction – were also present, as too was uncle Sharad Pawar. The two shared a fractious relationship after Ajit rebelled in July 2023, leading a clutch of MLAs into an alliance with the BJP and triggering the fall of the then-ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition, as well as the splitting of the party.
- Political leaders from across parties, including Pawar's cousin, Supriya Sule, and Shiv Sena boss and Uddhav Thackeray, who was Chief Minister when the MVA was in power, were present too, as were celebrities like actor Riteish Deshmukh.
- Pawar, 66, and four others, including both pilots, died after his chartered plane, a Learjet 45, crashed well short of a tabletop runway at the Baramati airfield. The NCP leader was travelling to campaign for his party in local body polls scheduled for next week.
- The plane, operated by a Delhi-based company called VSR Ventures, crashed at 8.46 am on its second attempt to land. On its first attempt the pilots reportedly missed spotting the runway and had to 'go around'. The Aviation Ministry later said the pilots also failed to send a 'readback' of the airport's landing instructions, which is standard protocol.
- It has also emerged the plane narrowly missed a deadline – by 28 days – to retrofit a satellite-based system that could have aided its approach in poor weather conditions.
- A senior official from civil aviation regulator DGCA said air traffic control at Baramati is managed by pilot cadets from the town's two private aviation academies, and that the last words heard from the plane's pilots were 'oh, s***'. Meanwhile, investigators confirmed this morning they had recovered the 'black box', which contains key flight data.
- The death of the 66-year-old leader, widely known as 'dada', or 'older brother', in Maharashtra politics, has left the BJP-led coalition government in shock and thrown fresh uncertainty over the future of the NCP faction that he led.
- It also leaves many of Pawar's planned development works, for Maharashtra and Baramati, unfinished. These include a proposal to increase the monthly allowance for beneficiaries of this flagship scheme from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,100 and the construction of a high-speed rail link between Pune and Nashik.
