Mumbai: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar was on Thursday elected as the National President of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) at the party’s national executive meeting. She steps into the role previously held by her late husband Ajit Pawar, who served as party president until his death in a plane crash. Ajit Pawar had also been serving as deputy chief minister at the time of his passing.
The decision to elevate Sunetra Pawar to the top party post was unanimous, with MLAs and senior leaders collectively backing her name without any dissent.
At the national convention, senior NCP leader Praful Patel addressed the gathering in an emotional address, asserting that there was complete clarity and unity among party leadership on the road ahead. Patel formally moved Sunetra Pawar’s name for the position, a proposal that was endorsed by all leaders and delegates present. She was subsequently declared the party’s national president, ushering in a new phase in the NCP’s organisational journey.
Sunetra Pawar is also in the electoral arena, contesting the bye-election from Baramati — a constituency that Ajit Pawar had represented eight consecutive times. On January 31, she was sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, becoming the first woman in the state’s history to hold that office.
Prior to her swearing-in, she had been unanimously chosen as the leader of the NCP Legislative Party to address the sudden leadership void left by her husband’s death. The party has shown electoral momentum in recent months, winning the Pune Zilla Parishad and strengthening its position in Kolhapur and several panchayat samitis.
Ajit Pawar had an extensive political career, having served as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister six times across various coalition governments. For years, he was widely regarded as the natural successor to his uncle, NCP founder Sharad Pawar, though he often struggled to emerge from the elder Pawar’s formidable shadow.
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A 2019 attempt to break away from the party amid internal friction failed to gain traction. However, in 2023, Ajit Pawar engineered a significant political realignment in Maharashtra splitting from the NCP, forming his own faction, and aligning with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it came to power in the state.
Following the split, Ajit Pawar’s faction retained the party’s name and election symbol and drew in several senior leaders and MLAs, considerably diminishing Sharad Pawar’s political influence. After the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance secured victory in the 2024 state assembly elections, Ajit Pawar was once again appointed deputy chief minister a post his wife Sunetra now holds in his absence.
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