The Good Nephew: Ajit Pawar chose not to follow in the footsteps of his father Anantrao Pawar, who worked for filmmaker V. Shantaram at the Rajkamal Studios in Bombay. Instead, he followed his uncle Sharad Pawar.
Baramati: Sharad Pawar had developed the pocket borough of Baramati into a family bastion and a hub of education. He also set up a milk cooperative, sugar mills, factories, vineyards, a wine processing plant and a hi-tech textile park. Ajit cut his teeth in this world. According to his website, his “dynamic leadership began and continued with different institutions such as milk unions, various cooperative societies, sugar factories and banks” here.
Political debut: In 1991, Ajit was elected MP from Baramati. Within weeks, he gave up the seat for his uncle when Sharad Pawar was appointed defence minister in Narasimha Rao’s government.
Back to Baramati: Ajit won the Baramati Assembly seat in the 1991 by-election and retained it till 2024.
Youngest in the cabinet: In 1999, when Sharad Pawar split from the Congress and formed the NCP, Ajit followed him. Later that year, when the Congress and the NCP came to power in Maharashtra, Ajit became the youngest cabinet minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. He was 40.
Man of many portfolios: Right through his long political career, Ajit handled major ministerial portfolios in Maharashtra such as fi nance, planning, water resources, power and rural development.
Irrigation minister: He became the irrigation minister in 1999 and held the portfolio for 10 years. It was later alleged that during this period he perpetrated a ₹70,000-crore scam. In 2012, Ajit had to resign from the post of deputy chief minister over the alleged scam. In 2019, though, he was given a clean chit by the Maharashtra government.
Around the clock: Ajit quit the NCP in November 2019 and returned to the fold in December. In 2023, he once again left to join the Eknath Shinde-led government as deputy CM. This time he split the NCP. The Election Commission recognised the faction led by him as the real NCP and assigned it the party’s clock symbol.
Twist of 2019: On November 23, 2019, Ajit broke away from the undivided NCP and helped Devendra Fadnavis form the government after the victorious alliance of the BJP and the undivided Shiv Sena collapsed. Ajit and Fadnavis took oath at the crack of dawn under the watch of then governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari. Less than 80 hours later, the government disintegrated.