Ajit Pawar’s death leaves NCP in a spot

The tragic and untimely demise of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in a plane crash has created a vacuum in the BJP-led state coalition government, and has cast a shadow of doubt on the future of the NCP. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is likely to face a leadership crisis as there is no clear second-in-command.

Questions loom over the party’s survival and its future equation with founder Sharad Pawar, whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending in April this year.
There is a speculation that the NCP might reunite with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), especially as ties between the factions have softened in recent months.The BJP, and its Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis are worried.  Fadnavis needs to ensure that the 41 MLAs aligned with Ajit do not drift back to Sharad Pawar,  or else the coalition government would lose a substantial chunk of support.

Ajit’s  wife, Sunetra, currently a Rajya Sabha member  clearly  lacks  experience and political acumen to lead from the front.
The NCP has one Lok Sabha member, Sunil Tatkare, and two Rajya Sabha MPs - Praful Patel and Sunetra Pawar.Ajit’s untimely death  has cast uncertainty over the future of his faction, with only senior leaders Tatkare and Praful Patel left  to lead.

 The only other mass-based leader who could match Ajit’s appeal, Chhagan Bhujbal too is currently unwell. While Patel and Tatkare have been key organisational figures, they lack the statewide grassroots connect that Ajit Pawar commanded.In the ruling Mahayuti, which won a massive mandate in the 2024 assembly polls, the BJP has 132 MLAs, followed by Eknath Shinde- led Shiv Sena with 57 and Pawar’s NCP 41.

Interestingly, both NCP factions are contesting the February 5 Zilla Parishad elections together on the ‘clock’ symbol, effectively signalling an unofficial merger.In the recently-concluded civic polls in Maharashtra, the NCP, which contested separately from Mahayuti allies, bagged 167 seats across 29 municipal corporations and was defeated by the BJP on its home ground of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, where it had aligned with Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP), which won only 36 seats across the state.

For Ajit, it was a perennial case of always being the bridesmaid, but never the bride, as he became the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister for a record six times, without realising his goal of becoming the chief minister.With a political career marked by an alleged Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam or the more recent controversy over his son Parth’s land deal in Pune, Ajit was always the survivor.