Ajit Pawar Dies in Plane Crash in Baramati, DGCA Confirms All Killed

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar died on Wednesday after a chartered aircraft flying from Mumbai crash-landed at Baramati, authorities confirmed.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), all five people on board the aircraft, including two crew members and three passengers, were killed when the plane crash-landed at around 8.45 am near the runway threshold at Baramati airport. Ajit Pawar was travelling with his personal security officer and an attendant at the time of the incident.

Pawar was on his way to Baramati to attend a public rally in connection with the Zilla Parishad elections. Officials said further details on the cause of the crash are awaited.

The veteran politician had been in Mumbai a day earlier, where he attended a meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. State minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and senior officials were also present at the meeting.

Ajit Pawar was Maharashtra’s longest-serving Deputy Chief Minister in non-consecutive terms, having held the post six times under governments led by Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde.

He is survived by his wife Sunetra Pawar and their two sons, Jay and Parth Pawar.

Pawar began his political career in 1982 after being elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory. He went on to serve as chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank in 1991. That year, he entered Parliament after being elected to the Lok Sabha from Baramati, later vacating the seat for his uncle Sharad Pawar.

He was elected seven times to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Baramati, first winning a by-election in 1991 and subsequently securing victories in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.

In November 2019, Pawar engineered a split in the NCP and joined a BJP-led government as Deputy Chief Minister. In February 2024, the Election Commission awarded the NCP name and symbol to the faction led by him.

(With inputs from ANI)