Baramati/Mumbai: A large truck carrying the mortal remains of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar made its way through the streets of Baramati, filled with a large mass of people. The truck had a large life-sized photo of Ajit Pawar with a yellow and red garland around. All of his personal staff and bodyguards, who used to tail him everywhere, were travelling with him this time too, one last time.
At the Vidya Pratishthan ground, where Pawar’s last rites were performed Thursday, not an inch of the ground’s earthy brown colour was visible. The ground was a sea of people, residents of Baramati as well as followers of Ajit Pawar who had made their way to Baramati from all over Maharashtra.
As the mortal remains of ‘Ajit dada’ (brother) were brought to the ground, there was utter silence. Later, the public broke into the chant of “Ajit dada parat ya”, calling him back.
Between 11 am and noon, Maharashtra bid its final goodbye to the six-time deputy CM with full state honours at Baramati, Pawar’s political launchpad 35 years ago and a seat that he has represented in the state legislature since 1991.
The funeral saw political personalities of all hues come together to share the grief of the Pawar family. While the last rites were under way with his sons Parth and Jay sitting for the ceremonial aspects, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) founder Sharad Pawar, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, and senior Congress leader Sushil Kumar Shinde were sitting together.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah travelled to Baramati for the last rites, along with newly-elected BJP national president Nitin Nabin and offered his condolences to the Pawar family’s political patriarch, Sharad Pawar, before offering floral tributes to the mortal remains of Ajit Pawar and exchanging a few short words of condolence with his sons. Shah was accompanied on the dais by the national president of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, Praful Patel.
Politicians such as Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Andhra Pradesh minister Nara Lokesh, Maharashtra deputy CM Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Speaker Rahul Narwekar, state ministers Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Chhagan Bhujbal and Chandrakant Patil, NCP leaders Sunil Tatkare and Dhananjay Munde, Maharashtra Congress President Harshvardhan Sapkal, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, among many others, were also present and offered floral tributes to Pawar’s mortal remains. Actor Ritesh Deshmukh and industrialist Amit Kalyani were also present.
Former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, with whom Ajit Pawar had worked as deputy CM in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, travelled to Baramati Wednesday night with his wife Rashmi and MLA son Aaditya to offer condolences to the Pawar family.
As the crowd swelled, the organisers kept asking people to show restraint and remember “the one principal Ajit dada lived by, discipline”. The public was heard chanting “Ekach vada (one promise), Ajit dada”, a slogan that had become synonymous with his personality, one that conveyed how weighty his promises were considered.
Ajit Pawar was known to only ever say yes to things that he could do, and whatever wasn’t in his hands, or wasn’t possible, he would promptly refuse.
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A united Pawar family
Ajit Pawar’s sudden death in an aircraft crash Wednesday and his funeral Thursday saw the entire Pawar clan uniting in grief, from the generation of Sharad and his brother Prataprao Pawar, to their children, Ajit Pawar’s brothers and sisters, and even the next generation: Parth, Jay, Rohit, among others.
Ajit Pawar’s first-born, Parth, performed the last rites of his father with his brother Jay on the side. A little before that, Ajit Pawar’s cousin Supriya Sule held his wife Sunetra Pawar’s hand, leading her to the place where his mortal remains were kept.
Sunetra, the sister of Padamsinh Patil who was once considered among Sharad Pawar’s closest aides, was married to Ajit Pawar for almost four decades.
She sprinkled holy water over her husband’s body and bowed down to touch his head and feet, and prayed. Sule then took her hand and helped her down the stage. Sule did the same for Ajit Pawar’s grief-stricken sisters.
Immediately after news about Ajit Pawar’s death spread, Sule had put up a one-word WhatsApp message: “Devastated”. On Thursday, she shared an official board with a much younger Ajit Pawar’s photo that said: “Member, 10th Lok Sabha, Deputy CM, Maharashtra.”
Ajit Pawar had first entered electoral politics by contesting and winning the Baramati Lok Sabha poll in 1991, but stepped down to make way for his uncle Sharad the same year.
Sule’s status read: “This is a very difficult time for our family. We are deeply touched and grateful for all the love, concern and messages we have received.”
The Pawar family in Maharashtra’s politics was always known as very close knit, with the concept of family bond and discipline being very strong. The family had a tradition, started by Sharad Pawar’s late mother, that the entire family across generations was expected to gather at one place and celebrate Diwali.
Uncle Sharad Pawar had been a father figure to Ajit Pawar ever since he lost his own father, Anantrao Pawar, when he was just out of his teens.
Ajit Pawar’s rebellion against the Sharad Pawar-led NCP and his alliance with the Mahayuti had ruptured that family unity. The 2023 rebellion was followed by two bitter electoral battles for the family turf of Baramati. The first, when Ajit Pawar introduced his wife, Sunetra, to politics, to take on his cousin, incumbent Baramati MP Supriya Sule.
The battle forced the entire Pawar clan to pick sides, with Ajit Pawar’s sibling, Shrinivas Pawar and his entire family, choosing to campaign for Sule, unwilling to go against patriarch Sharad Pawar. Sunetra lost and was later accommodated in the Rajya Sabha.
Six months later, there was an encore of this battle with Sharad Pawar’s NCP fielding Ajit’s nephew, Yugendra Pawar, to contest against him in the state legislative assembly polls. Yugendra lost the battle as the residents of Baramati decided to maintain the status quo in the Lok Sabha as well as the assembly, unwilling to pick sides.
Of late, there was a thaw in relations between the two factions of the Pawar family. In August last year, the entire family, including Ajit Pawar and Sunetra Pawar, came together to attend Yugendra’s wedding and even posed for a picture together.
Ajit Pawar also campaigned alongside nephew Rohit Pawar, MLA from the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and Sule for the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation polls this month that the two NCPs contested together. In one of these rallies, Rohit Pawar hailed Ajit Pawar as “Rocky bhai”, protagonist of the film KGF.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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