Sunetra Pawar, 62, the wife of late NCP deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, was sworn in as Maharashtra’s first woman deputy chief minister on Saturday at a ceremony in Mumbai.
Following her husband’s death in an air crash in Baramati on January 28, the Nationalist Congress Party, a constituent of the Mahayuti government, elected her as the leader of its legislature wing.
A letter to that effect was submitted to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who forwarded it to Governor Acharya Devvrat.
Thrust into the spotlight from the shadows of one of Maharashtra’s most powerful political families, Sunetra Pawar now faces the task of leading the NCP after her husband’s sudden demise.
The 62-year-old Rajya Sabha MP’s elevation to the number two position in the BJP-led state cabinet marks a new chapter for the party. She took oath as deputy chief minister in the evening, shortly after being elected leader of the NCP Legislature Party.
Hailing from Tera village in Dharashiv (formerly Osmanabad) in Marathwada, Sunetra Pawar comes from a political family but was not actively involved in politics for much of her life.
Her brother, Padamsinh Patil, is a senior NCP leader. Her father, Bajirao Patil, was involved in the Marathwada liberation struggle, which preceded the merger of Hyderabad state into the Indian union.
A commerce graduate, Sunetra Pawar has interests in painting, music, photography, and agriculture. After her marriage, she took up farming at Katewadi village.
The NCP, founded by Sharad Pawar in 1999, split after his nephew Ajit Pawar joined the Mahayuti government of the BJP and Shiv Sena in July 2023.
Ajit Pawar was appointed deputy chief minister and continued in the same post after the Devendra Fadnavis-led government came to power following the Mahayuti alliance’s victory in the November 2024 assembly elections.
Described on her website as a passionate environmentalist and social entrepreneur, Sunetra Pawar made her electoral debut in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, contesting against her sister-in-law and incumbent NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule in Baramati, the Pawar family stronghold.
After losing to Sule, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha. Her elder son, Parth Pawar, has remained on the sidelines after unsuccessfully contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Maval, while her younger son, Jay, is an entrepreneur.
Sunetra Pawar largely stayed away from politics until the 2024 general elections. In 2010, she founded the Environment Forum of India (EFOI), a non-governmental organisation focused on environmental awareness and eco-conscious communities.
EFOI pioneered the eco-village model in India, integrating ecological practices into rural development. She has led campaigns for biodiversity conservation, protection of endangered species, water resource management, and drought mitigation.
She is a trustee of the Vidya Pratishthan, an educational institution set up by Sharad Pawar, and has represented India in international discussions on sustainability and social innovation as part of the World Entrepreneurship Forum based in France.
Sunetra Pawar has led a self-help group movement in 86 villages of Maharashtra under the Nirmal Gram campaign, transforming Katewadi, a hamlet in Baramati, into an eco-village, promoting sanitation, health, community livestock management, and solid waste management.
She is also chairperson of the Baramati hi-tech textile park, a multi-modal garment manufacturing facility that employs over 15,000 rural women.
The previously quiet member of the Pawar family now faces the challenge of holding the NCP together and negotiating coalition dynamics while working with the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
Her immediate challenge will be deciding whether to go ahead with the anticipated merger of the two NCP factions.