Ajit Pawar

Ajit Anantrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: [əd͡ʒit̪ pəʋaːɾ]; born 22 July 1959) is an Indian politician who has served as, alongside Devendra Fadnavis, the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 2 July, 2023.

He served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from 2022 to 2023, and was a Member of the Parliament in the Lok Sabha in 1991, representing Baramati constituency.

Ajit Pawar was born on 22 July, 1959, in Deolali Pravara, Ahmednagar district.

He subsequently completed his schooling in the same city.

He is the nephew of Sharad Pawar, the president of the Nationalist Congress Party and a four-time former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, being the son of Sharad's elder brother, Anantrao Pawar.

Anantrao initially worked for renowned film maker V. Shantaram's Rajkamal Studios in Mumbai.

Pawar dropped out of college to help his family after the death of his father.

He is educated up to the senior secondary level and holds the Secondary School Certificate from the Maharashtra State Board.

When Ajit was in primary school, his uncle Sharad was a rising political figure in the then-ruling Indian National Congress.

Ajit made his first foray into politics in 1982, when he was elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory.

He has also been a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly since 1991, representing Baramati constituency.

He is the nephew of Sharad Pawar, the president of the Nationalist Congress Party and a four-time former Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

He has been Deputy Chief Minister of the state the most number of times and is currently serving his 5th term.

He was elected the chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank in 1991, remaining in the post for the next 16 years.

During this period, he was also elected to the Lok Sabha, representing the Baramati Parliamentary constituency.

He later vacated his Lok Sabha seat for his uncle, who had become the Defence Minister in Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao's government.

Later, he was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Baramati Assembly constituency.

He served as the Minister of State for Agriculture and Power in CM Sudhakarrao Naik's government from 1991 to 1992.

He became the Minister of State for Soil Conservation, Power and Planning in 1992 when Sharad Pawar became the Chief Minister.

Pawar was re-elected from the same constituency in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014.

In 1999, as part of the INC-NCP coalition government, he became a Cabinet Minister responsible for the Irrigation Department.

He was additionally given the Rural Development Department in 2003 as part of Sushilkumar Shinde's cabinet.

He has also been a Cabinet Minister in the Maharashtra government thrice: from 2004–2008, 2008–2009, and 2009–2010.

After the INC-NCP coalition won in the 2004 Assembly elections, he retained the Water Resources Ministry in Deshmukh's and later Ashok Chavan's cabinets.

In 2019, he joined a government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and became the Deputy Chief Minister; he claimed to have the support of a majority of the NCP's MLA's, but resigned from his post, alongside then-CM Devendra Fadnavis.

In 2023, he led another split in the NCP and became the Deputy Chief Minister in the cabinet of CM Eknath Shinde.

Having the support of the majority of the erstwhile NCP's MLAs, he also claimed the position of president of the NCP, as well as the party's name and its electoral symbol.

n 7 February 2024, The Election Commission Of India (ECI) awarded the party name and symbol to the faction headed by Ajit.The faction led by Sharad Pawar will be henceforth known as Nationalist Congress Party (SharadChandra Pawar)

On 23 November 2019, Pawar defected from the NCP and was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

He submitted a paper with the signatures of NCP's MLAs to the Governor to prove the government's majority; however, the government collapsed less than 80 hours later, resigning along with then-CM Devendra Fadnavis.

He subsequently returned to the NCP, and on 1 December 2019, it was announced that he would take over as Deputy CM for the Maha Vikas Aghadi government after the start of the winter session of the state legislature on 16 December.

In 2022, due to a split in the Shiv Sena, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government collapsed.

After the rebel Shiv Sena faction and BJP formed a government with Eknath Shinde as CM, Pawar became the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

On 2 July 2023, Ajit Pawar split the NCP and joined the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition, being sworn in as Deputy CM for the fourth time.

His actions were believed to have been caused by his dissatisfaction at the lack of a post within the NCP, unlike his cousin Supriya Sule.

He claimed to have the support of the majority of NCP's MLAs, and later the presidency of the NCP.

He also said that his faction now represented the "real" NCP, and laid claim to the NCP's name and electoral symbol.

In his faction's first assembly after the split, Ajit criticized his uncle, calling him biased towards the latter's daughter, Supriya Sule.

He also said that his uncle had insulted him, accused his uncle of hypocrisy, and urged him to retire from politics.

There are allegations that, as the minister for water resources, he spared no efforts to help in the development of Lavasa, a project touted as a "vision of Sharad Pawar".