Ajit Anantrao Pawar

Ajit Anantrao Pawar is an Indian Politician and the current Member of Legislative Assembly representing the Baramati Constituency. A member of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the nephew of Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar has served as the deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Apart from being a former deputy Chief Minister, he has also served as the Minister of State for Agriculture and Power, Defence Minister of State, Minister of State for Soil Conservation, Power and Planning and Minister of Water Resource. Popularly referred as ‘Dada’, he is known to follow the footsteps of his uncle Sharad Pawar and is considered as the future of the NCP.

Born on 22^nd July 1959 in Deolali Pravara in Ahmednagar District, Ajit Pawar is the son of Anantrao Pawar who worked at V. Shantaram’s Rajkamal Studios. Pawar is educated till secondary school and holds the Secondary School Certificate from the Maharashtra Government. In his teens, when he was still pursuing his education, his uncle Sharad Pawar became a well known leader in Maharashtra as well as India. Ajit Pawar then decided to follow the footsteps of his uncle and started to do the social work in Baramati. He started his political career in his early twenties. He contested the sugar co-operative body election and won the election. In the year 1991, he was elected as the Chairman of Pune District Co-Operative Bank and remained at the post for the next 16 years. In the same year, he contested the 1991 Lok Sabha Elections from Baramati and won. However, he vacated his seat for his uncle Sharad Pawar who was then the Defence Minister of India. In the same year, he got elected to the Maharashtra Assembly and was made the State Agriculture Minister from November 1992 to February 1993. Ajit Pawar has been contesting the Maharashtra Assembly Elections from the same constituency and has been successful in winning the 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 Elections. In all these years, he served as the Minister of State for Agriculture and Power, Defence Minister of State, Minister of State for Soil Conservation, Power and Planning and Minister of Water Resource. On 29^th September 2012, he was appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and he maintained the position till 25^th September 2014.

Ajit Pawar has been into controversies in his entire political career. He was alleged in the irrigation scam and was alleged to be the most corrupt politician along with Sunil Tatkare. He was also forced to resign from the post of Deputy Chief Minister but was reinstated after receiving a clean chit. He also has been in controversies after the Mumbai police seized a car with INR 4.85 lakh cash that was allegedly used by him. In 2013, when Maharashtra was facing one of the worst drought situations, he made a controversial remark on drought crisis but later apologized for his comments. In the 2014 elections, while campaigning for his sister Supriya Sule, he came into controversies after threatening the villagers to cut their water supply if they did not vote for Sule.

Ajit Pawar is married to Sunetra Pawar and they have two sons Jay Pawar and Parth Pawar. Ajit Pawar has always been following the footsteps of his uncle Sharad Pawar and he also considers him as his political mentor. It is also said that he is not in good terms with the former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan and it is believed that he had engineered a revolt within the Congress party against Chavan.