Senior Nationalist Congress Party leaders met Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday to discuss a successor to late deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, amid indications that his wife Sunetra might step into the role.
“Ajit Dada was our leader and the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. The position needs to be filled at the earliest, and we have discussed this with the chief minister,” NCP Rajya Sabha member Praful Patel told reporters in Mumbai.
“At the same time, public sentiment must be taken into account before any decision is taken. We will soon deliberate on the party’s future course with Sunetra Pawar and other members of the family.”
Sources said Sunetra was likely to be sworn in as early as Saturday.
A sudden vacuum has emerged in the Maharashtra government and the NCP hierarchy following 66-year-old Ajit’s death in a plane crash on Wednesday. One of the state’s two deputy chief ministers, Ajit held key portfolios including finance, excise and sports.
Before meeting Fadnavis, NCP leaders had held preliminary discussions with Sunetra — a Rajya Sabha member — after Ajit’s cremation on Thursday.
NCP insiders said that most party MLAs were keen to see Sunetra step into her late husband’s shoes. A meeting of party legislators and other senior leaders is likely to be convened soon to formally propose her name, they said.
The latest developments come amid renewed signals from leaders of both NCP factions — the other led by Ajit’s uncle Sharad Pawar — about a possible merger.
Multiple sources said Ajit had been seriously pursuing reunification and had set an early February deadline to complete the process.
Ajit Pawar
There is, however, no clarity whether the Sharad faction — now part of the Opposition bloc at the state and national levels — will be willing to join the NDA after a merger.
“Talks of a merger had been going on. Over the past three to four months, discussions took place with Ajit Dada and other leaders, and it was almost decided that the merger would happen,” Eknath Khadse, a senior leader from the Sharad faction, told reporters.
Khadse said the “organisational and political groundwork” for a reunification had already been laid and that a formal announcement had been planned after the completion of local body elections in early February.
“Our party had agreed to contest the zilla parishad elections under the ‘clock’ symbol (of the undivided party, now used by the Ajit faction),” he said.
Khadse, however, declined to say whether a united NCP would align with the NDA or the Opposition.
Kiran Gujar, a close associate of Ajit, too said the late party chief had been “one hundred per cent keen” on a merger, PTI reported.
“He had told me five days ago that the entire process was complete and the merger was imminent in the next few days,” the news agency quoted Gujar.
Ajit had split the original NCP, led by Sharad, in 2023 and joined forces with the BJP. Most of the MLAs of the undivided party had sided with him, and the Election Commission recognised his faction as the real NCP and allotted it the party’s “clock” symbol.
The Sharad faction was given a new symbol, the “tutari” (trumpet).
At Ajit’s initiative, the two factions had jointly contested the January 15 civic elections in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad against the BJP. The move was seen widely as a step towards reunification.