Sunetra Pawar: The reluctant politician set to carry forward husband Ajit Pawar’s legacy
The Rajya Sabha MP, who could become Maharashtra's first woman Deputy CM, may face a leadership test in a party shaped by the family and factional pulls.
Sunetra Pawar entered electoral politics in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. After her loss from Baramati to Supriya Sule, Sunetra was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. (Facebook) With the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leadership backing Sunetra Pawar to fill the vacuum created by the death of her husband Ajit Pawar, the 63-year-old Rajya Sabha MP is set to become Maharashtra’s first woman Deputy Chief Minister on Saturday. Though she married into the Pawar family for over four decades, Sunetra largely remained away from active politics until recently.
Early life and social work
Born in Osmanabad (now Dharashiv) in 1963 into a Maratha family with deep political roots, Sunetra grew up in an environment shaped by public life. Her father Bajirao Patil was a noted local politician, while her brother Padamsinh Bajirao Patil rose as a powerful political figure in the district during the 1980s. This placed her within one of Maharashtra’s most influential political lineages even before her marriage into the Pawar family.
Sunetra completed her Bachelor’s degree in commerce from the S B Arts and Commerce College in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) in 1983. In December 1985, her brother arranged her marriage to Ajit, after the two first met earlier that year.
For much of her life, Sunetra stayed away from formal politics and focused on social initiatives in Baramati. Her first major public work was in Kathewadi, the Pawar family’s ancestral village near Baramati, where she led a sanitation drive after noticing poor hygiene and open defecation.
Residents recall that she personally participated in cleanliness campaigns and encouraged households to build toilets. The village later received the Centre’s “Nirmal Gram” status in 2006 for becoming free of open defecation.
Kathewadi later developed into a model eco village with solar streetlights, biogas plants, waste management systems and organic farming practices. It received several awards, including the Sant Gadgebaba Swachhata Abhiyan award. The village also introduced measures such as recording mothers’ names along with fathers’ names in land records and promoting women’s self-help groups.
She was also involved in setting up the Baramati Hi Tech Textile Park in 2008. The 65-acre facility, approved under the Centre’s Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks, employs more than 15,000 workers, most of them women, in apparel, weaving and printing units. Sunetra Pawar has chaired the project.
Political career and controversies
Sunetra made her debut in electoral politics in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls after her husband fielded her as the NCP candidate, backed by the BJP-led NDA, from Baramati. She went up against her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, NCP founder Sharad Pawar’s daughter.
Her candidature placed her at the centre of the split within the Pawar family and the NCP. She lost the election to Sule. In the months that followed, she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. The move was seen as Ajit Pawar’s attempt to give her a formal political role after the Baramati defeat.
Since taking the oath in June 2024, her attendance in the Rajya Sabha has been around 69%. She has participated in four debates, compared with the national average of 58, which amounts to an average of 10 debates per year of a Rajya Sabha MP’s six-year term.
While Sunetra Pawar has kept a low public profile, her family has been linked to controversies. In 2009, her brother, a former legislator, was named as the main accused in the 2006 murder of Congress leader Pawanraje Nimbalkar and his driver near Navi Mumbai. The CBI charged him with murder and criminal conspiracy. The case is still pending before the courts.
Sunetra’s name also appeared in early probes related to the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank case because of her links to companies involved in sugar mill transactions. In 2021, the Enforcement Directorate attached assets linked to firms associated with Ajit and Sunetra Pawar, but neither was named in the agency’s chargesheet.
In April 2024, the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing gave her a clean chit, stating that no criminal offence was found in the loan sanctioning or sale and lease of sugar mills linked to the bank.
Challenges ahead
Sunetra Pawar is soft-spoken and has limited political experience. As Deputy CM and the party’s face, she will have to deal with senior party leaders who have held organisational and ministerial positions for years.
In the event of a reunion of the two NCP factions, Sharad Pawar is expected to play a role in guiding the transition. Otherwise, she will have to depend mainly on her sons Parth and Jay, both of whom have yet to establish themselves politically, while managing party leaders who have often aligned with the BJP to ensure their own survival.
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