‘Purely an accident’: Sharad Pawar rules out foul play in Ajit Pawar plane crash

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Pawar Senior was in New Delhi to attend Parliament’s Budget session but cut short his engagements and left immediately after receiving news of his nephew’s death.

Describing Ajit’s death as a major blow to the state, he said Maharashtra had lost a highly capable and experienced leader. “This is a loss that can never be made up. However, not everything is in our hands. We are deeply hurt, and I request everyone not to bring politics into this,” he said.

Ajit’s sudden demise has left a significant vacuum not only in the BJP-led ruling coalition in Maharashtra but also within the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he headed in its previous unbroken avatar.

The political split

For decades, the family wielded immense influence over western Maharashtra’s politics by dominating cooperatives, sugar mills and the Nationalist Congress Party. Ajit Pawar was widely seen as Sharad Pawar’s heir apparent. But his eventual split from his uncle went beyond a party rupture, fracturing the family itself and reshaping the trajectory of one of the state’s most influential political dynasties.

In 2019, Ajit Pawar briefly aligned with the BJP to form a government, before returning to Sharad Pawar’s fold. The rupture, however, became permanent in July 2023, when Ajit Pawar formally split the NCP and joined the BJP-led government. Next year, the Election Commission acknowledged Ajit’s faction as the original NCP, granting him the name and the party symbol of a clock. The Sharad Pawar faction had to contend with a new name, NCP (SP) and the new symbol.

Most members of the Pawar family chose to remain with Sharad Pawar. Ajit Pawar had openly expressed resentment at being sidelined within his own family, alleging that he was treated like an outsider. His brother, Shriniwas Pawar, was also believed to have campaigned against him.

 

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What happened?

Ajit Pawar was travelling from Mumbai to Baramati on Wednesday morning to address multiple public meetings as part of the campaign for the February 5 Zilla Parishad elections in Maharashtra. The aircraft, a Learjet 45, commonly used for VIP and charter travel, crashed near Baramati airport in Pune district.

Apart from Ajit Pawar, Captain Sumit Kapoor, who had a flying experience of 15,000 hours, co-pilot Capt. Shambhavi Pathak with 1,500 hours of flying, Personal Security Officer (PSO) Vidip Jadhav, and flight attendant Pinky Mali were killed in the accident.

Officials said the aircraft’s black box comprising the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) will be analysed after recovery to ascertain the exact cause of the crash.