Maharashtra Deputy CM Ajit Pawar dies in plane crash in Baramati

BARAMATI (Maharashtra): Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar died in the plane crash on Wednesday morning.

According to the DGCA, five people, including the crew, on board the chartered plane flying from Mumbai to Baramati died after a crash-landing at 8.45 am on Wednesday morning. The crash-landing of Mumbai-Baramati charter plane occurred at the runway threshold in Baramati.

Pawar was on board along with two more personnel (1 PSO and 1 attendent) and 2 crew members. Further details about the crash are awaited. He was headed to Baramati to attend a public rally for the Zilla Parishad elections.

Shocked and deeply saddened by the untimely passing of Maharashtra Deputy CM Shri Ajit Pawar in a tragic plane crash. His sudden demise is a great loss to public life and to Maharashtra politics, where he served with experience and resolve.

My heartfelt condolences to his family… pic.twitter.com/tOb4fH4hla

— DK Shivakumar (@DKShivakumar) January 28, 2026

Pawar was in Mumbai on Tuesday where he attended a meeting of the Maharashtra Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, chaired by CM Devendra Fadnavis. Maharashtra Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and other officials were also present.

Ajit Pawar was the longest serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra non-consecutively. He served in the position for six terms within various governments. He had worked as deputy chief minister in the cabinets of Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde. He is married to Sunetra Pawar, with whom he has two sons, Jay and Parth Pawar.

Ajit Pawar began his political career in 1982 after being elected to the board of a cooperative sugar factory. In 1991, he was elected as the chairman of the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1991 from the Baramati Parliamentary constituency and later vacated the seat for his uncle Sharad Pawar. He was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly seven times from the Baramati Assembly constituency. He first won in a 1991 by-election and subsequently in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014.

In November 2019, he engineered a split in the NCP and joined a government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and became the Deputy Chief Minister. In February 2024, the Election Commission awarded the party name and symbol to the faction headed by Ajit Pawar. (ANI)