- Two Pawar family members, Sharad and Parth, to become Rajya Sabha MPs from Maharashtra
- Sharad Pawar begins his third Rajya Sabha term; Parth Pawar starts his first term
- Seven Maharashtra Rajya Sabha seats up for polls; NDA likely to win six seats
Two members of the Pawar family are set to become Rajya Sabha MPs from Maharashtra this time. They belong to different parties, different political camps, and different generations. Sharad Pawar (85), the patriarch of the Pawar Parivar, is about to begin his third term in the Upper House of Parliament. Parth Pawar, son of Maharashtra's former Deputy Chief Minister, late Ajit Pawar, and Sharad Pawar's grandnephew, is looking to begin his first term as an MP. The way things stand, three members of the Pawar family would be in Parliament at the end of the Rajya Sabha polls on March 16 -- Sharad Pawar and Parth Pawar in Rajya Sabha, and Supriya Sule in Lok Sabha.
Veteran To Stay On
This year, seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra are going to the polls. MLAs vote in the Rajya Sabha election, and owing to the NDA's stellar win in the 2024 Maharashtra election, six out of these seven seats are likely to go in its kitty. The BJP is set to win four, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena one and Ajit Pawar's NCP one. That leaves only one seat for the Opposition.
Earlier, both the Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT) had claimed the Rajya Sabha seat. Then, Sharad Pawar's daughter and MP Sule went to Uddhav Thackeray's residence to seek his party's support. The Congress agreed to the senior Pawar's name, apparently on the high command's advice, once it became clear that the veteran leader wanted a third term in the Rajya Sabha.
Parth Pawar's Parliament Route
Parth Pawar, 35, is the son of NCP chief Ajit Pawar, who died in a shocking plane crash this January. Ahead of Ajit Pawar's death, his wife Sunetra Pawar became a Rajya Sabha MP. After the crash killed him, Sunetra Pawar replaced him as Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister, but she has not resigned from the Rajya Sabha yet. The NCP will nominate a candidate when a vacancy is created after her resignation.
Parth Pawar is set to be elected to the Upper House on the strength of NCP's MLAs in the Assembly. NCP has 40 MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly. Parth Pawar contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Maval parliamentary constituency, but lost to Shiv Sena's Shrirang Barne.
When Sharad Pawar Reprimanded Parth
The two Pawars, separated by two generations and 50 years, had a run-in during the political row in the wake of actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death in 2020. At the time, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP government was in power and the BJP was trying to corner it over the actor's shocking death. At that point, Parth Pawar echoed the BJP's demand for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The senior Pawar had then publicly dismissed his grandnephew's remarks. "Parth's demand for a CBI probe is immature; his demand is not worth a penny," he had said.
Three years later, Parth's father and Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit Pawar led a rebellion that split the NCP. Ajit Pawar, whose faction retained the party's name and symbol, joined the NDA government, and the faction led by Sharad Pawar came to be known as NCP (SP).
The Pawar Power
Ajit Pawar's untimely death happened at a time when talks of a reunion of the NCP factions were rife. While that merger is not happening at this point, there has been some rapprochement in the family. Parth Pawar skipped his mother's swearing-in ceremony and met the senior Pawar in Baramati. He reportedly received the blessings of Sharad Pawar for his Parliament debut.
Parth Pawar and Sharad Pawar are now headed to the Rajya Sabha, and Supriya Sule is in the Lok Sabha. Sunetra Pawar is likely to be elected to the Assembly from the Baramati seat within six months of taking over as Deputy Chief Minister. Rohit Pawar, Sharad Pawar's grand-nephew is also an MLA. With three MPs and two MLAs from the same family, the Pawars' influence in politics is evident, despite being in different camps.
