A private plane carrying Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of India\u2019s Maharashtra state, crashed on Wednesday, killing him and four other people on board, authorities said.<\/p>\n
The aircraft was en route to Baramati, Pawar\u2019s home city, from India\u2019s financial capital of Mumbai when it crash-landed in an open field and burst into flames some 254km (159 miles) from the state capital.<\/p>\n list of 2 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The reason behind the crash was not immediately known, and an investigation is under way.<\/p>\n Pawar, 66, was a key political figure and served as the second-highest elected official in Maharashtra, India\u2019s wealthiest state.<\/p>\n He was an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) \u200cin the state government, leading a faction \u2060that split in 2023 from the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).<\/p>\n He wielded considerable influence in the state\u2019s sugar belt and was known for his ability to mobilise rural voters.<\/p>\n Born on July 22, 1959, Pawar started his political career with the Indian National Congress, commonly known as the Congress party, in the late 1980s, influenced by his uncle Sharad Pawar, according to a report in India\u2019s The Hindu newspaper.<\/p>\n In 1991, he was first elected as a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from the Baramati constituency, which he represented for a record eight terms.<\/p>\n In 1999, when his powerful uncle formed the NCP, Pawar joined it and served several terms as Maharashtra\u2019s deputy chief minister in coalitions led by the NCP over the past two decades.<\/p>\n In 2019, Pawar briefly left the NCP to join the BJP\u2019s cabinet in Maharashtra as a deputy chief minister. He later returned to the party and, in 2023, orchestrated a split within the NCP by aligning with the BJP-led coalition.<\/p>\n In February 2024, the Election Commission of India acknowledged Ajit Pawar\u2019s faction as the official NCP. The same year, he was sworn in as Maharashtra\u2019s deputy chief minister for a sixth time.<\/p>\n Pawar\u2019s contribution to the development of his region was significant, said a report in The Indian Express newspaper, particularly in Maharashtra\u2019s Pimpri-Chinchwad area, where he pushed \u201clarge-scale infrastructure projects, including wider roads and improved civic facilities\u201d.<\/p>\n Baramati especially underwent a makeover, with several infrastructure projects attributed to him, as he supervised the development of his bastion with his uncle, Sharad Pawar.<\/p>\n However, Pawar was also accused of corruption in two prominent cases.<\/p>\n In an alleged Maharashtra irrigation scam, he was accused of involvement in irregularities in awarding contracts worth millions of dollars for civic projects between 1999 and 2009.<\/p>\n Last year, he was named in a land scam in Maharashtra\u2019s Pune city, with a company owned by his son accused of buying reserved government land below the market value. Upon uproar, the deal was scrapped.<\/p>\n Government inquiries into both the alleged scams remain inconclusive.<\/p>\n Pawar\u2019s aircraft, travelling from Mumbai, tried to make an emergency landing in the family stronghold of Baramati, where he was set to canvass \u200din the local elections.<\/p>\n The VSR Ventures-operated Learjet 45 aircraft crashed in an open field at about 8:30am (03:00 GMT) while landing at Baramati airport, local media reported.<\/p>\n The charter aircraft went down in flames, said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India\u2019s aviation regulator.<\/p>\n Videos from the crash site showed smoke billowing from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across the open field.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first it was \u200con fire, after that there were four or five more explosions,\u201d an unidentified witness told India\u2019s ANI news agency, after seeing the plane crash and explode. But the flames were \u200ctoo fierce to pull anyone out, he added.<\/p>\n Pawar was travelling with his personal security officer, an assistant, and two crew members at the time of the crash, the DGCA said.<\/p>\n VK \u2060Singh, the director of VSR Ventures, told broadcaster India Today the cause of the crash was not clear.<\/p>\n \u201cThe aircraft is 100 percent safe,\u201d he said. \u201cThe crew was fairly experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n PM Modi described Pawar as a \u201cleader of the people\u201d in a post he shared on X. He said Pawar\u2019s \u201cuntimely demise\u201d was \u201cshocking and saddening\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cShri Ajit Pawar Ji was a leader of the people \u2026 [with] a strong grassroots level connect,\u201d Modi said, adding that he was a \u201cwidely respected\u201d and \u201chardworking\u201d political stalwart.<\/p>\n \u201cHis understanding of administrative matters and passion for empowering the poor and downtrodden were also noteworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party also posted his condolences on X, calling Pawar\u2019s death \u201cextremely painful\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI am with the people of Maharashtra in this hour of grief,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Maharashtra\u2019s Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he had \u201cno words to express my emotions\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI have lost my strong and generous friend,\u201d he posted on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A private plane carrying Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of India\u2019s Maharashtra state, crashed on Wednesday, killing him and four other people on board, authorities said. The aircraft was en route to Baramati, Pawar\u2019s home city, from India\u2019s financial capital of Mumbai when it crash-landed in an open field and burst into flames some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Who was Ajit Pawar?<\/h2>\n
![\"Ajit](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/12669803-1769592460.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
What\u2019s Pawar\u2019s legacy?<\/h2>\n
How did Pawar die?<\/h2>\n
What have been the reactions?<\/h2>\n
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