'Pawar' Tactic Works As Ajit Dada Appointed Pune's Guardian Minister A Day After Skipping Cabinet Meeting

In a significant political development, Ajit Pawar, the Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader, has taken over the role of Guardian Minister for Pune, replacing Chandrakant Patil on Wednesday. 

This decision comes about a month after reports surfaced indicating that Chandrakant Patil, the MLA from Kothrud, had a meeting with senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. The discussion revolved around Patil's perception of being sidelined by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

Chandrakant Patil had been entrusted with the responsibility of being the guardian minister for Pune district in September of the previous year following the formation of the Shinde-Fadnavis government. Since joining the government Ajit Pawar had had staked claim for the district.

Ajit Pawar had skipped the cabinet meeting

It should be noted that after Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had skipped the cabinet meeting on Tuesday and Following Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's absence, the NCP successfully secured the guardian minister's post for all the targeted districts. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, on Wednesday, unveiled the revised list of guardian ministers for 11 districts, with Ajit Pawar being appointed as the guardian minister for Pune.

Pune Guardian minister timeline

Ajit Pawar, representing the Baramati assembly segment, had previously served as Pune's guardian minister from 2004 to 2014.

After 2014, when the BJP-led alliance came into power, Girish Bapat was appointed as Pune's guardian minister. However, Bapat was later elected to the Lok Sabha from Pune, leading to Chandrakant Patil, hailing from Kolhapur, taking on the role of guardian minister. In 2019, Patil was elected as the representative of the Kothrud assembly constituency, but the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition, consisting of the Shiv Sena, the NCP, and the Congress, assumed power under then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. Consequently, Ajit Pawar returned as the guardian minister in 2019.

Here is the updated list of Guardian Ministers for various districts:

Amarawati - Chandrakant Patil

Bhandara - Vijaykumar Gavit

Buldana - Dileep Walse-Patil

Parbhani - Sanjay Bansode

Nandurbar - Anil Patil

Wardha - Sudhir Mungantiwar

Kolhapur - Hassan Mushriff

Beed - Dhananjay Munde

Gondia - Dharmarao Baba Atram

Solapur - Chandrakant Patil

Akola - Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil