Mumbai, 28 Jan

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Ajit Pawar’s career graph fit perfectly into the idiom of regret and lost opportunities. The death of Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister for a record six times left his dream of becoming the chief minister unrealised, underscoring the narrative of ‘could have been but never could’.

The 66-year-old grassroots politician known for his administrative acumen was killed in an air crash in his home turf Baramati in Pune district on Wednesday morning.

A seasoned politician, Ajit Pawar never hid his desire to become the State’s CM. Before joining the BJP and Shiv Sena alliance government in July 2023, he was deputy CM when Devendra Fadnavis was the CM in November 2019, their government lasting barely two days.

Pawar was known to be a workaholic, and was famous for his punctuality, unlike many politicians notorious for their tardiness.

He had the record of becoming the deputy chief minister in several governments, led by theCongress, Shiv Sena and BJP.

His political career was marked by twists and turns, and he was always the survivor, be it in the alleged Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam or the recent controversy over his son Parth’s land deal in Pune.

Affectionately called ‘’Dada’’ (elder brother), Ajit Pawar was known to speak his mind and did not mince words while expressing his view especially before a rural audience.

In 2013, Ajit Pawar stirred up a hornet's nest with comments ridiculing the acute water and power shortage in parts of the state. He was forced to issue a public apology after his remarks came in for all-round criticism.

Addressing a public meeting in a village in Pune's Indapur, he had mocked Bhaiyya Deshmukh, a farmer from a drought-hit area in Solapur who was on a hunger strike at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, demanding more water.

“He has been fasting for the last 55 days. If there is no water in the dam, how can we release it? Should we urinate into it? If there is no water to drink, even urination is not possible,” he had said.

Referring to the load shedding situation in parts of the state, he had said, “I have noticed that more children are being born since the lights go off at night. There is no other work left then.”

In July 2023, he stepped out of his uncle and NCP founder’s Sharad Pawar’s shadow by rebelling against him and walking away with most of the party’s MLAs, along with the party’s name and symbol.

After a setback in last year’s Lok Sabha election where his party won only one seat, he outwitted critics by bagging 41 seats in the Assembly polls five months later, in alliance with the BJP. The NCP(SP) got only 10 seats.

Since the 2024 Assembly results, Ajit Pawar fortified his position in State politics.

Despite his alliance with BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, he stressed that he had joined the ruling alliance for development and had not deviated from his core progressive ideology.

He stayed focused on his party and his ministries while political speculation centered around the so-called one-upmanship between CM Devendra Fadnavis and the other deputy CM Eknath Shinde.

Born on 22 July, 1959 to Asha and Anantrao Pawar, Ajit Pawar followed in the footsteps of his uncle (his father;s younger brother) Sharad Pawar into politics in 1982 when he was elected to the board of a sugar factory.

In 1991, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baramati and later vacated the seat for his uncle who then became defence minister in PV Narasimha Rao’s government.

Ajit Pawar then served as Baramati MLA for eight terms from 1991.

Ahead of the 2024 Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar appeared to be using colour psychology to rebrand himself as ‘dada' (big brother) to the State’s women voters. There was pink everywhere in his campaign – from social media posts and event banners to the jackets he wore and song videos about the Ladki Bahin scheme focussed on women.

Ajit Pawar, who was the finance and planning minister, would have tabled his budget for 2026-27 next month when the State legislature’s budget session begins in Mumbai on 23 February.

In the days to come, the focus will be on the future of the NCP factions, with political circles buzzing with the possible merger of the two outfits.