In Maharashtra politics, power is rarely about slogans. It is about control—of institutions, timing, and terrain. Few leaders understood this better than Ajit Pawar, whose three-decade career unfolded not as a quest for popularity but as an exercise in permanence.
When Pawar died in a chartered aircraft crash near Baramati on January 28, 2026, tributes poured in from across party lines. Yet the grief was accompanied by a deeper, unresolved question: how does a political system shaped so decisively by one man recalibrate in his absence?
To understand Ajit Pawar’s importance, one must look beyond posts held or elections won. His real legacy lies in how he mastered—and redefined—the mechanics of regional power.
Ajit Pawar was born in 1959 into a family where politics was not merely a profession but a structure of life. His uncle Sharad Pawar emerged as one of India’s most formidable regional leaders, and the Pawar name came to dominate western Maharashtra. Yet Ajit’s political grooming did not mirror his uncle’s national trajectory.
Instead of Delhi or ideological movements, Ajit Pawar learned politics at the granular level—inside cooperative banks, sugar factories, and irrigation boards. In Maharashtra, these institutions determine access to credit, water, and employment. Control over them often translates into political longevity.
By the time he entered electoral politics in the early 1990s, Pawar already understood that governance here was less about charisma and more about logistics.
Baramati has long been synonymous with the Pawar family. Sharad Pawar turned it into a symbol of progressive rural politics. Ajit Pawar turned it into a command centre.
Winning the Baramati Assembly seat repeatedly from 1991 onwards, Pawar treated the constituency not as a stepping stone but as an anchor. Roads, irrigation channels, educational institutions, cooperative bodies—his imprint was everywhere. Supporters describe this as development-driven politics; critics see it as hyper-centralisation.
What is indisputable is this: Baramati did not merely vote for Ajit Pawar—it functioned through him.
This model, replicated across parts of Pune district, became his most durable political asset.
Ajit Pawar was never a mass mobiliser in the classical sense. He did not rely on ideology, emotive speeches, or national narratives. His authority stemmed from administration.
As water resources minister, irrigation minister, finance portfolio holder, and six-time deputy chief minister, Pawar became synonymous with decision-making. Bureaucrats knew him as demanding and unsentimental; colleagues saw him as efficient but uncompromising.
His critics accused him of reducing governance to command-and-control. His defenders countered that Maharashtra’s complex political terrain required exactly that.
Either way, Pawar’s politics was not about persuasion. It was about outcomes.
With power came controversy—and Ajit Pawar accumulated both in equal measure.
Irrigation projects, land allocations, and the long-running debate around Lavasa ensured he remained under constant scrutiny. While no single allegation conclusively derailed his career, the cumulative effect was a public image of a leader perpetually surrounded by questions.
His 2013 remark during a drought—later apologised for—revealed the costs of his bluntness. More recently, allegations of interference in a high-profile Pune accident case revived concerns about proximity to power.
Yet, Pawar survived every storm. The absence of legal closure in many cases allowed him to continue operating, reinforcing a perception that he was politically untouchable.
In Maharashtra, survival itself often becomes proof of strength.
The brief 2019 alliance with the BJP was widely interpreted as an aberration—an impulsive gamble that failed. But it was also a signal.
Ajit Pawar demonstrated that he was willing to act independently of Sharad Pawar’s shadow. Though he returned to the party fold, the episode exposed fault lines within the Nationalist Congress Party and hinted at ambitions that went beyond loyalty.
The real rupture was yet to come.
The 2023 split of the NCP was not just a party rebellion; it was a generational power shift.
By taking a majority of MLAs with him and later securing the party name and symbol through the Election Commission, Ajit Pawar executed one of the most consequential political takeovers in recent Indian history. He did not merely challenge Sharad Pawar—he institutionalised the challenge.
For supporters, it was pragmatism in an era of coalition politics. For critics, it was a betrayal of legacy.
But from Ajit Pawar’s perspective, it was governance logic: align with power, secure relevance, and keep the system moving.
One of Ajit Pawar’s defining traits was emotional distance—from rivals, from ideology, even from his own narrative. He rarely spoke about legacy, succession, or posterity.
He did not project himself as a future chief minister, despite being widely seen as one. He seemed content operating one rung below the top—where authority is exercised but accountability can be shared.
This positioning may explain both his longevity and his frustration. He was indispensable, yet never ultimate.
On January 28, 2026, Ajit Pawar boarded a chartered flight to Baramati for local election engagements—routine work for a politician who never disengaged from the ground.
The crash that killed him was sudden, violent, and final. Investigations continue, but the political reaction was immediate: calls for restraint, appeals against politicisation, and an unusual consensus across parties that this was a moment for pause.
For Maharashtra, the loss was not just of a leader—but of a stabilising, if controversial, force.
Ajit Pawar leaves behind more than a party faction or an electoral base. He leaves a model of politics built on institutions rather than ideology, administration rather than articulation.
The unanswered questions now loom large:
Can the Ajit-led NCP survive without him?
Does Baramati remain a fortress without its architect?
And can Maharashtra politics function without one of its most experienced operators?
History may not remember Ajit Pawar as a visionary. But it will remember him as something arguably more rare: a politician who understood power not as spectacle, but as structure—and mastered it until the very end.
