Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra Pawar will become the next deputy chief minister of Maharashtra following her husband's death in an unfortunate plane crash in Baramati, said sources on Friday, adding that Praful Patel will be made the national president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Ajit Pawar was the longest serving deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, and he held the finance, planning and excise departments in the Devendra Fadnavis government.
According to sources, a legislative party meeting of the NCP will be held at 2 pm on Saturday, in which Sunetra will likely be elected as its leader. Following this, Sunetra will be sworn in as the deputy chief minister at around 5 pm at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai. Preparations are underway at the Raj Bhavan for her swearing in ceremony, they added.
The development comes a day after senior leaders of the NCP met Sunetra to discuss about the party's future. Speculations were also rife that the two factions of the NCP may merge again, with a close aide of Ajit Pawar saying that that the former deputy chief minister was keen on a reunion. Kiran Gujar, who was associated with Ajit since 1990s, said the NCP chief was cent per cent keen on merging the two factions.
"Many positive things were on the cards, but this tragedy struck and took Ajit 'dada' (elder brother, as he was popularly known) away from us. Now, after his death, it has become even more imperative that both factions come together and work for the betterment of Baramati and the state," Gujar told news agency PTI.
It must be noted that the two NCP factions had contested the recently concluded municipal corporation elections in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad together, but had failed to impress after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the polls. In Pune, Ajit's NCP won 27 seats, while Sharad Pawar's faction bagged three seats. In Pimpri Chinchwad, the Ajit faction won 37 seats.
Coming to Ajit Pawar, he died on January 28 after the plane he and four others were travelling crashed near the Baramati airport in Pune. He was cremated on Thursday in Baramati in presence of all top leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, BJP national president Nitin Nabin, NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin and others.
