Mumbai, Jan 31 (PTI) Thrust into the spotlight from the shadows of one of the most powerful political families in Maharashtra, Sunetra Pawar on Saturday became the first woman deputy Chief Minister of the state as she faces the Herculean task of leading the Nationalist Congress Party after the tragic death of her husband Ajit Pawar.
The 62-year-old Rajya Sabha MP’s elevation to the number 2 position in the BJP-led state cabinet will also mark the beginning of a new chapter for the NCP.
Following NCP president and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s death in an air crash in Baramati on January 28, Sunetra Pawar was earlier on Saturday elected as the leader of the NCP Legislature Party. She took oath as deputy CM in the evening.
Hailing from Tera village in Dharashiv (formerly known as Osmanabad) in the Marathwada region, Sunetra Pawar comes from a political family, but wasn’t actively involved in politics herself for much of her life. Padamsinh Patil, her brother, is a senior NCP leader.
Her father Bajirao Patil was involved in the Marathwada liberation struggle which preceded the merger of the Hyderabad state into the Indian union.
A commerce graduate, she is said to have interest in painting, music, photography and agriculture. After her marriage, she actively 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. He was appointed as deputy CM, and continued to hold the same post in the subsequent Devendra Fadnavis-led government that came to power after the Mahayuti alliance won a landslide victory in the November 2024 assembly polls.
Described on her website as a passionate environmentalist and social entrepreneur, Sunetra Pawar made her electoral debut in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, facing off against her sister-in-law and incumbent NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, in Baramati, the home turf of the Pawar family.
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. Jay, the younger son, is an entrepreneur.
While Ajit Pawar entered politics in the early 1980s, Sunetra Pawar largely stayed away from the political limelight until the 2024 general election.
In 2010, she founded the Environment Forum of India (EFOI), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to raising environmental awareness and fostering eco-conscious communities.
Under her leadership, EFOI pioneered the eco-village model in India, an innovative approach that integrates ecological practices into rural development. She has also led campaigns for biodiversity conservation, protection of endangered species, water resource management and drought mitigation, as per her website.
Sunetra Pawar is also a trustee of the Vidya Pratishthan, an educational institution set up by Sharad Pawar. She has represented India in international discussions on sustainability and social innovation as a member of a think-tank of the World Entrepreneurship Forum based in France.
She 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.
Sunetra Pawar is also the chairperson of the Baramati hi-tech textile park, a multi-modal garment manufacturing facility that employs over 15,000 rural women.
The hitherto silent member of the Pawar family now faces an uphill task of holding the NCP together and negotiating coalition dynamics while working with the BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. But her immediate challenge will be to decide whether to go ahead with the much-anticipated merger of the two NCP factions. PTI MR ARU ARU KRK
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