Mumbai: It is a known fact across Baramati that if ‘dada’ (elder brother) is unable to fulfil a prior commitment, honour an invitation, or lend an ear to the problems of his electorate, ‘vahini’ (sister-in-law) steps in for him. Dada, in this case, was Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA from Baramati Ajit Pawar, and vahini is his wife Sunetra, keeper not just of the household, but also his political empire.
On Saturday, 62-year-old Sunetra did exactly what she had been accustomed to doing for so long. She stepped into his shoes, fully aware they are a tad bit too large for her.
Three days after her husband’s death in a plane crash, Sunetra Pawar, an unwilling politician, gathered herself and took over Ajit Pawar’s place as the leader of the legislature party of his faction of the NCP, and the post of Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister that Pawar occupied for six terms.
She becomes the state’s first woman deputy chief minister.
The Rajya Sabha MP submitted her resignation to take up the post. Her election to the post within the NCP legislature party was unanimous, and comes at a time when the two factions of the NCP—one which was under Ajit Pawar until his death and the other under Sharad Pawar—were at the cusp of merging.
Under Ajit Pawar’s leadership, that transition would have been smooth, with him being the undisputed leader. After his sudden death, while leaders from the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, which currently sits on the Opposition benches, have shown eagerness for the reunion to go through, while leaders from the Ajit Pawar-led NCP have maintained a calculated silence on any talks of the merger, unsure of the power equations post such a reunion.
Best wishes to Sunetra Pawar Ji as she begins her tenure as Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, the first woman to hold this responsibility. I am confident she will work tirelessly for the welfare of the people of the state and fulfil the vision of the late Ajitdada Pawar.…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 31, 2026
In this backdrop, leaders of the Ajit Pawar-led faction felt it imperative for Sunetra to take over the party’s reins and put the party’s internal power structures in place before entertaining talks of a merger.
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The accidental politician
In the run-up to every major election, Sunetra would embark on campaign in and around the hamlets in Baramati in Maharashtra’s Pune district, meeting people, while husband Ajit Pawar would look after the party’s larger election strategy, Baramati residents familiar with the power couple tell ThePrint.
In 2024, when the Lok Sabha elections were right around the corner, Sunetra hit the campaign trail once again. But this time around, the stakes were higher — she wasn’t seeking votes for husband Ajit Pawar, but for herself.
The NCP, founded by Pawar family patriarch Sharad Pawar, had split in July 2023 when Ajit Pawar rebelled with a majority of the MLAs in tow and joined the ruling Mahayuti, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections were the first major election since then, and in the rather acerbic fight playing out in the open between the two NCP factions, a victory in the Pawar family turf of Baramati was being seen as the ultimate endorsement of which faction is the ‘real NCP’.
In an interview to ThePrint in April 2024, Sunetra said, “I was into social work and the rest of my family was in politics, so I was happy with my work. There was no question of coming here, but dada (Ajit Pawar, popularly known as Ajit dada in Baramati) took a different stand. So, I had to support him.”
Voters in Baramati had elected Ajit Pawar to the Lok Sabha in 1991. He resigned the same year to make way for his uncle Sharad Pawar to contest the bypoll. Since then, barring the two-year period between 1994 and 1996, the Pawar family has always represented Baramati in Parliament. Meanwhile, Ajit Pawar had held on to the Baramati assembly seat since 1991.
To win the Pawar family turf, Ajit Pawar fielded Sunetra, who, until then, was a political novice, but knew the constituency like the back of her hand, having built a repository of goodwill in parts of Baramati with her social work.
“Sunetra Pawar never voiced any political ambition for so many years, but she was always socially very active in Baramati. She is a known figure there. A lot of times, in Ajit Pawar’s absence, she has taken charge, taking care of people’s issues,” political commentator Pratap Asbe had told ThePrint back then.
Sunetra took on her sister-in-law, Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, who has represented Baramati in the Lok Sabha since 2009. Other than Ajit Pawar, Sule was also always seen as the foremost claimant to Sharad Pawar’s political legacy, an insecurity that had prompted Ajit Pawar’s rebellion.
While Sunetra lost the election, the electoral battle caused a vertical split in the family, forcing everyone in the Pawar clan to choose sides. Ajit Pawar’s sibling, Shrinivas Pawar, his wife, Sharmila, and son, Yugendra, all sided with Pawar senior and went from village to village campaigning for Sule.
The only members of the Pawar family to campaign for Sunetra, aside from Ajit Pawar himself, were their sons, Parth and Jay, both of whom have served as backroom administrators in the Ajit Pawar-led NCP since.
Parth had in 2019 unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election, becoming the first Pawar to lose an election. Subsequently, Sunetra, who lost against Sule, and then Yugendra, who lost the 2024 assembly poll against uncle Ajit Pawar, joined the ranks.
Ajit Pawar accommodated his wife in the Rajya Sabha in June that year.
Despite the bitter electoral battle in 2024, Sunetra and Sule largely refrained from criticising each other publicly, maintaining a cordial relations.
On Wednesday, when Ajit Pawar’s plane crashed, and on Thursday, when his final rites were performed in Baramati amid a sea of people from across Maharashtra, Sule was often seen at Sunetra’s side, helping her through the grief.
The unwilling politician from two dynasties
Sunetra’s initial reluctance to enter electoral politics perhaps stemmed from the fact that she comes from not one, but two legacy political dynasties that have at times been at odds with one another.
Sunetra is the sister of Padamsinh Patil, who was once considered among Sharad Pawar’s closest aides. In fact, it was the closeness between Patil and senior Pawar that led to Sunetra tying the knot with Ajit Pawar in an arranged marriage in the 1980s. This was before Ajit Pawar, now a five-time deputy chief minister, had made his political debut.
However, relations between senior Pawar and Patil soured owing to allegations of corruption against the latter related to the Osmanabad District Central Co-operative Bank. What strained ties further was Patil’s arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2009 in connection with the murder of Congress leader Pavanraje Nimbalkar and his driver three years earlier. The NCP suspended Patil from the party following his arrest.
Ahead of the 2019 assembly elections, Patil’s son, Ranajagjitsinh Patil, joined the BJP and is now an MLA from the Tuljapur assembly constituency in their home district of Dharashiv.
This was perhaps the only time journalists covering Maharashtra politics remember the usually tactful and calm Sharad Pawar losing his cool. At a press conference in Ahmednagar, when he was quizzed about a string of NCP leaders defecting, one journalist asked him about Patil, calling him a ‘relative’. Pawar got visibly peeved at the use of the word, and shot back: “What are you saying about a relative? Is there any link between relatives and politics? If you are going to speak like this I don’t want to talk.”
Nitin Birmal, an associate professor at Pune’s Dr Ambedkar College of Arts & Commerce, had told ThePrint in 2024 that neither did Sunetra Pawar openly say anything about the feud with Padamsinh Patil nor did it weigh on Ajit Pawar’s relations with the rest of the family.
According to him, the cracks within the Pawar family formed only after Ajit Pawar’s son Parth’s 2019 Lok Sabha defeat.
“Soon after Parth’s defeat, Sharad Pawar started promoting his other grand-nephew, Rohit Pawar, who also won the 2019 assembly elections from the Karjat Jamkhed constituency. That is when ties within the family started deteriorating,” Birmal said.
Baramati’s daughter-in-law
In a conversation with ThePrint in March 2024, Vidyadhar Kate, a former sarpanch of Katewadi village in Baramati, recalled how 24 years ago, “Sunetra vahini” used to come to his village as early as 7 am, take a broom in her hand and start cleaning the village premises.
“She had chosen Katewadi as her first social welfare project. She wanted to implement ‘Nirmal Gram Abhiyan’ here — to build toilets, ensure cleanliness, make the village sustainable and open-defecation free. Initially, everyone was skeptical. The women were especially hesitant to come out and participate. So, she decided to lead by example,” said Kate, who has been closely associated with Sunetra’s social work.
According to Kate, the village received at least five awards from the central government in the early 2000s in recognition of the developmental work done there.
Kate and those who have worked with Sunetra say Katewadi was in some ways the pilot for her social welfare work. In 2024, Sunetra chose this particular village to launch her Lok Sabha campaign without saying so.
“Initially, everyone looked at me as a daughter-in-law from the Pawar family and wondered how long I would last. But then people saw my work and my determination, and supported me… You have been showering love on dada for many years now. He is anyway yours. But you gave me your life, though I was your daughter-in-law. And for it to mean something, we will definitely put in competitive efforts,” she had said at the function at the time.
In 2010, Sunetra founded an NGO called the Environmental Forum of India to promote sustainable development. The NGO has, over the years, undertaken projects ranging from tree plantation drives to cleaning up of rivers and other waterbodies, rewarding conservancy workers, and organising science fairs and eye camps in villages across Baramati.
Besides, Sunetra is also chairperson of Baramati Hi-Tech Textile Park, an unlisted public company that has created employment for the women of Baramati in large numbers.
“Sunetra vahini has given a voice to the women of our village. She takes them along for her projects, and later encourages them to stand up before a crowd and talk about the work they did. Despite being from two strong political families, she has no airs. She will share our meals, have tea with us,” said Kate.
In the last two years, ever since the soft-spoken Sunetra entered active politics, she has kept a low profile. Her attendance in the Rajya Sabha has ranged from 27 percent to 93 percent in the six sessions that she has been an MP for so far.
She has participated in four debates, all in 2025. The first was the discussion over last year’s Union budget, then a debate on the Indian Ports Bill, and two other debates about planning and environmental safeguards for the Nashik Kumbh Mela, and the crisis in the coffee plantations of the Wayanad district. She has asked 126 questions as a Rajya Sabha member.
“Sunetra Pawar’s personality is a complete contrast from Ajit Pawar’s. She is very soft and graceful. But, sometimes when a person faces an unusual challenge, it results in the emergence of a completely different personality,” political commentator Hemant Desai said.
“After all, Indira Gandhi was initially known as ‘gungi gudiya’ (dumb doll) due to her quiet and reserved nature when she started her political career,” Desai said.
Gandhi made the transition to that to being hailed as an ‘Iron Lady’.
With regards to Sunetra, she will have two battle pressures from two sides – one from within with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP having several senior experienced leaders with a hunger for power, such as Sunil Tatkare, Praful Patel, and Chhagan Bhujbal. And the other, from within the Mahayuti alliance.
“Ajit Pawar always managed to maintain a distinct identity for his party despite being in an alliance with the BJP. There are many examples of how he maintained his party as ideologically distinct from the BJP. How Sunetra Pawar handles that challenge remains to be seen,” Desai said.
This is an updated version of a profile done by the ThePrint in 2024
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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