Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash on Wednesday morning.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), five people, including the crew, on board the chartered plane flying from Mumbai to Baramati, died after a crash-landing at 8.45 am.
Pawar was headed to Baramati to attend a public rally for the Zilla Parishad Elections. He was in Mumbai on Tuesday, where he attended a meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Maharashtra Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and other officials were also present.
Who Will Lead NCP Now?
The question now arises as to who will lead the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP.
Political commentators believe that the two factions, led by Ajit Pawar and Sharad Pawar respectively, were going to merge after the Zilla Parishad elections scheduled for February 5. This was following the poor show of the NCP-SP in the Municipal Corporation elections.
However, now with Ajit Pawar's untimely demise, the merger becomes a necessity. It is likely that Sharad Pawar's daughter and Baramati MP Supriya Sule could be seen at the helm of the NCP affairs sooner rather than later.
Know about Ajit Pawar
Ajit Pawar was the longest serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra non-consecutively. He served in the position for six terms within various governments. He had worked as deputy chief minister in the cabinets of Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde.
He is married to Sunetra Pawar, with whom he has two sons, Jay and Parth Pawar.
