The void left behind in the party and the extended Pawar family may prove more challenging to fill. 

Ajit Ashatai Anantrao Pawar, 66, lived his political and personal life in ways that ensured a chapter, not merely a footnote, in the annals of Maharashtra’s contemporary politics. Tragically killed, along with four others, in an aeroplane crash near his home turf, Baramati, on Wednesday morning, Ajit dada, or Dada as he was called, was a modern-day politician—ideologically flexible but firm of purpose. He was known for his strong grasp on the administrative machinery for more than 25 years, handling the finance portfolio, among others; a blunt and no-nonsense attitude; homegrown language and idioms that occasionally were in the risqué territory; and an ability to recognise party workers and network across political lines. For reasons within and beyond him, Pawar never did take the oath he most aspired to—that of the chief minister of Maharashtra. He held the deputy’s post for a record six times under four chief ministers of different parties, some with less experience than he had.

That aspiration, as much as the need to annul the corruption charges in the Rs 70,000-crore irrigation scam, led him to splinter the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) set up by his uncle Sharad Pawar in June 1999, after he walked out of the Congress. Groomed to be the second-in-command, Ajit Pawar’s NCP finally allied with the BJP under Devendra Fadnavis and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. If he played into the BJP’s hands, he did not acknowledge it, nor did he explain the dubious oath-taking ceremony in the wee hours of the morning in 2019 with Fadnavis. Somehow, he retained his seat in the state government. Such bewildering decisions and the corruption charges stain his legacy. To his credit though, he did not visit the RSS headquarters as several crossover leaders did, and he held nothing back in criticising Yogi Adityanath for his communal vitriol during the 2024 elections. Fadnavis knows that Pawar’s vacuum will gnaw at the government.

The void left behind in the party and the extended Pawar family may prove more challenging to fill. Will Sharad Pawar, old and ailing, who also groomed daughter Supriya Sule but relied on Ajit, now merge the two factions of the NCP? For the family, this cuts the deepest. Ajit dada was the foremost among his generation, someone even Sule acknowledges looking up to, with an enviable personal connection across the clan. He groomed wife Sunetra and son Parth into politics, in the dynastic mould that most parties unfortunately follow, but beyond politics, he was a person of sensitivity and authority in the Pawar clan. Indeed, across Baramati. He will be dearly missed at home and on his home turf even as his mixed legacy in politics and public life is appraised by commentators and historians in the years to come.