“I additionally thanked him (Ajit Pawar) for calling me at 7 am on my birthday on 20 January, as he does yearly. And I mentioned, I’ll wait by my cellphone at 7 am on 20 January, 2027, too,” Mhatre mentioned.

That decision will, sadly, not come anymore.

Ajit Pawar, 66, died early Wednesday morning when his personal plane crash landed in Baramati, the house turf of the Pawar household. The accident additionally left two members of the crew, in addition to two personnel (private safety officer and an attendant), useless.

He might be often known as the longest-serving deputy CM of Maharashtra, although non-consecutively, to date. He has occupied that workplace six instances. And whereas he nourished an ambition to steer the state from the entrance, take up the CM’s submit, that want will now stay unfulfilled.

“He was an amazing orator. At present Maharashtra is in grief. He wished to be CM. If he had change into CM, then Maharashtra would have gotten an excellent administrator, however sadly he couldn’t change into one,” mentioned Sanjay Raut, Rajya Sabha MP from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, talking with reporters.

CM Devendra Fadnavis remembered Ajit Pawar as “damdar” (highly effective) and “dildar” (beneficiant), whereas deputy CM Eknath Shinde described him as “rokhthok“, somebody who is easy and who by no means minced phrases.

Bureaucrats in Mantralaya keep in mind Pawar as a politician with the very best attendance within the secretariat. Until he was travelling for work, he could be in his workplace at 8 am day by day. He would name folks for appointments as early as 6 am, and would even schedule his area visits at 5 am or 6 am, making it a behavior for bureaucrats working with him to start out their day very early.

Chatting with ThePrint earlier than the 2024 state meeting polls, Shinde, who was then CM and is now deputy CM, had mentioned: “Between Ajit dada, Devendraji (CM Devendra Fadnavis) and me, we run the federal government 24X7.”

“Ajit dada takes the early morning shift, Devendraji is there throughout the day, and I take the night time shift,” Shinde mentioned, referring to his behavior of working very late into the night time.

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Additionally Learn: Why Ajit Pawar’s battle in Pune brings up flashbacks of 2017 BJP-Shiv Sena struggle in Mumbai

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The phenomenon that was ‘Ajit dada’

Ajit Pawar was very not like his uncle Sharad Pawar or cousin Supriya Sule in the way in which he carried himself in public life.

Deep frowns, tart phrases, and impolite dismissals of his followers have been all a part of the package deal that “Ajit dada” was.

His most controversial assertion thus far—“ought to I pee to replenish empty dams”—made at a time when distressed farmers have been complaining to him about acute water scarcity in April 2013, was a gaffe attributable to this very manner. He later apologised for “hurting folks’s sentiments”.

His brash, rustic model of talking meant that he discovered himself in such sticky spots one too many instances. Final 12 months, he rebuked a younger IPS officer, Anjana Krishna, who was taking motion in opposition to unlawful sand mining. On a name with Krishna, the video of which went viral, Pawar purportedly chided her when she was taking motion in opposition to unlawful soil excavation in a Solapur village.

“Itna aapko daring hua kya?… principal tere upar motion lunga (how come you’re performing in such a daring manner? I’ll take motion in opposition to you),” he purportedly mentioned over the cellphone, when she was heard saying: “How do I do know if that is actually the deputy CM on the cellphone?”

Occasion leaders had then defended Ajit Pawar, saying it was merely “his model of talking”.

Later final 12 months, he confronted flak for snapping at a farmer in Marathwada who had misplaced his crops within the floods.

The deputy CM was assembly farmers affected by the floods at a village in Bhoom-Paranda taluk of Dharashiv district. When a farmer requested him if the federal government would declare a mortgage waiver for them, he mentioned: “Why don’t we make him the chief minister? Don’t you suppose we perceive? Are we right here to play gottya (marbles)? I’ve been working since 6 am. You are attempting to suppress (the voice of) those that are working.”

NCP members near him say they noticed the person past the caustic phrases.

“In actuality, Ajit dada is as candy because the aam ras (mango juice) on my plate,” an NCP chief as soon as instructed ThePrint over a Gujarati thali (meal).

Ajit Pawar’s political journey

Ajit Pawar’s plunge into politics was in 1991 when he was elected as chairman of Pune district cooperative financial institution.

The identical 12 months, he efficiently contested the Lok Sabha election from Baramati on a Congress ticket. He let the seat go for his uncle to be elected and as a substitute contested the Baramati MLA seat that 12 months. He has held the meeting constituency ever since.

In these early days, with Ajit Pawar being the one different member of the Pawar household in politics, many had hailed him because the heir-apparent—a notion that was shaken by Sule’s entry into politics in 2006.

Ajit Pawar step by step rose by way of the ranks, serving as a junior minister, then cupboard minister and deputy chief minister underneath a number of CMs of the Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and now the BJP.

If Sharad Pawar, founding father of the undivided NCP, is described as a PM-in-waiting, his nephew, who overtly expressed ambitions to occupy the Maharashtra authorities’s prime submit, was a CM-in-waiting.

The closest he got here to the submit was maybe in 2004, when the NCP received 71 seats in opposition to the Congress’ 69 in Maharashtra, however the former relinquished its declare for the CM submit and as a substitute negotiated for some key departments.

Ajit Pawar admitted this to be a miscalculation by his get together colleagues in an interview with a Marathi tv channel, IBN Lokmat, in February 2024.

The deepest scar in Ajit Pawar’s whole political journey was maybe the allegations of Rs 70,000-crore irrigation rip-off the place contracts to construct dams have been supposedly inflated in worth when he was the water assets minister. The allegations led to his resignation from the Maharashtra Cupboard in 2012. In December 2019, the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau gave him the clear chit within the case.

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Additionally Learn: Inside preventing noticed Mahayuti & MVA type unlikely ties in some seats. How they fared in Maharashtra

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The rebellious nephew

As legend goes, the phrases ‘kaka mala vachva’ (uncle, save me) can nonetheless be heard reverberating by way of the partitions of Pune’s Shaniwar Wada, the seat of the Peshwas, on some nights.

Again within the 1700s, Maharashtra noticed one of the crucial brutal uncle-nephew feuds when Raghunathrao, who coveted the throne, deliberate the assassination of the ninth Peshwa, his nephew Narayanrao, and turned a deaf ear to his cries for assist.

The sport of thrones continued into fashionable politics as effectively, although it was not fairly as barbaric because the Raghunathrao-Narayanrao battle. Maharashtra’s politics has seen many uncle-nephew rifts: Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, Gopinath Munde and Dhananjay Munde, and even Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar.

The political corridors of Maharashtra had been sporadically abuzz with talks of a rift inside the Pawar household over the query of Sharad Pawar’s political legacy since 2006, when Sule formally entered politics by contesting a by-election to the parliamentary seat of Baramati—the Pawar bastion.

The unease over succession, nonetheless, by no means grew into an open battle until 2019.

That 12 months, until about 11 pm or so on 22 November, Ajit Pawar was with leaders from the then undivided Shiv Sena and the Congress. A plan to put in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) authorities underneath Uddhav Thackeray had been formalised. The leaders have been, nonetheless, in for a shock when visuals of Ajit Pawar at Raj Bhavan began doing the rounds within the early hours of 23 November, when it was nonetheless darkish.

Ajit Pawar joined palms with the BJP to type a 72-hour authorities earlier than returning to the MVA fold when one after the opposite, NCP MLAs who had initially proven help to him trickled again to the Sharad Pawar camp. Regardless of the misgivings, Ajit Pawar was given the submit of deputy CM.

Then in 2023, Ajit Pawar ripped the band support off. He walked out of the Sharad Pawar-led get together with the vast majority of NCP MLAs in tow, claiming to be the true NCP, and becoming a member of palms with the Mahayuti alliance of the BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena. He took up the deputy CM’s submit in that authorities too, first underneath CM Shinde after which, after the 2024 meeting polls, underneath CM Fadnavis.

In his first present of energy instantly after the open riot, Pawar had unequivocally articulated the insecurities he had felt inside the Sharad Pawar-led get together.

Talking on the first assembly of the get together’s rank and file after taking oath as deputy CM within the Mahayuti, he mentioned: “Amhi konacha poti janmala alo, hyat kay chuk ahe amchi? (how is it our fault that we have been born in another person’s womb).”

He needed to not solely show that he held command over the NCP employees and voters in Maharashtra, but additionally over the Pawar household bastion of Baramati, the crown jewel for each the NCPs. For that, he launched his spouse, Sunetra Pawar, to politics, pitting her in opposition to cousin Sule within the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which Sunetra misplaced. She was later accommodated as a Rajya Sabha MP.

The folks of Baramati have been torn, and they also selected establishment: Sule for MP and Ajit Pawar for MLA, as he received the second spherical on his dwelling turf, defeating his nephew, Yugendra Pawar, within the state meeting polls later in 2024.

That election, Ajit Pawar additionally amply established his NCP’s dominance over Sharad Pawar’s, profitable 41 of the 54 seats the get together contested, as in opposition to the Sharad Pawar-led NCP’s 10.

That election, Ajit Pawar was seen in a really totally different avatar, sporting an onion pink jacket, shaking palms with the citizens and recording reels for social media.

“In 2014, when the Modi wave had gripped the nation and social media was a brand new phenomenon, Ajit dada had known as me as soon as, as normal at 6 am, at his official bungalow to ask about social media. I gave him a couple of concepts. There was a subsequent assembly, however after that Ajit dada mentioned, he doesn’t imagine in all of this and doesn’t must do it,” a Mumbai-based political marketing consultant instructed ThePrint.

“Ten years later, that very same Ajit dada employed a whole company for publicity and branding within the media,” he added.

Restlessness inside Mahayuti

Of late, the chief was getting stressed within the Mahayuti, with there being an intense energy tussle among the many prime three leaders—Fadnavis, Shinde and Pawar. Two ministers of Ajit Pawar’s get together needed to resign for the reason that second Mahayuti authorities got here to energy.

Dhananjay Munde stepped down in March 2025 after his right-hand man was arrested in a case associated to the homicide of a sarpanch in Beed district.

Manikrao Kokate, who was first stripped off the agriculture portfolio after his repeated foot-in-mouth conditions, resigned in December 2025 after a Nashik periods courtroom confirmed his conviction in a 1995 case.

Additional, the allegations of land seize in opposition to Ajit Pawar’s son, Parth, in November 2025, and CM Fadnavis’ fast response to it, ordering an inquiry, additionally weakened Ajit Pawar’s place inside the Mahayuti.

The native physique polls to municipal councils and companies throughout Maharashtra have been particularly powerful to struggle as an alliance and sparked off talks of there being an actual chance of the 2 NCPs reuniting, one thing that Ajit Pawar didn’t deny when repeatedly requested in interviews.

Whereas the BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena nonetheless tied up at a couple of locations throughout this month’s polls to municipal companies, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, a conventional rival, was being more and more seen as a 3rd wheel.

When the BJP and Ajit Pawar-led NCP determined to contest the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad company polls as a “pleasant struggle”, it was Ajit Pawar who first made the pitch shriller, taking over the BJP’s native leaders over corruption. He tied up with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP to struggle the election and focussed each ounce of power on Pune district, however ended up dejected and defeated.

His debilitating loss in Pune and an embarrassing defeat in Pimpri Chinchwad shaved a number of inches off his political stature because the BJP took a decisive lead in each these city our bodies.

“Ajit Pawar’s help construction within the Pune district included the native elites, the landowning Marathas. After 1999, these households in politics left the Congress, performing out in opposition to Suresh Kalmadi and joined the NCP. Submit 2014, they left the NCP and joined the BJP. So, the folks delivering the wins are the identical; it’s simply that their get together has modified,” Nitin Birmal, affiliate professor at Pune’s Dr Ambedkar Faculty of Arts & Commerce, instructed ThePrint.

“Ajit Pawar’s city energy centres have been principally Pune, Ahilyanagar, and Solapur—most of those have crumbled. It will value him his bargaining energy inside the Mahayuti,” Birmal had mentioned after the civic ballot outcomes on 16 January.

Ajit Pawar had shrugged off the loss, and began making ready for polls to 125 panchayat samitis and 12 zilla parishads on 5 February, which the 2 NCPs as soon as once more determined to contest collectively. On Wednesday, he was on his solution to Baramati for a couple of scheduled marketing campaign rallies.

For MLAs near him, Ajit Pawar was a “perfectionist”.

Chatting with ThePrint, one NCP MLA recalled how in 2022, when Ajit Pawar was finance minister within the MVA authorities, he commissioned a Chhatrapati Sambhaji memorial (Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji’s son) at Vadu Budruk village in Pune district, and concerned himself in all the main points of the challenge, proper from its design.

Ajit Pawar loyalists additionally agree that their chief had no nationwide ambitions. He didn’t have an excellent command over English and Hindi, like Sule, nor did he have equations with nationwide leaders the way in which she does, they mentioned.

He solely ever wished management of Maharashtra, politically and administratively—a dream that had began rising distant amid Maharashtra’s political churns, the Mahayuti energy tussles and the native physique ballot outcomes. On Wednesday, it was worn out.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)

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Additionally Learn: Why Ajit Pawar doesn’t wish to again his son Parth, battling allegations of a land rip-off

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