The Pawar family’s political influence has only increased as Sunetra Pawar, the deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s wife, is expected to join the Rajya Sabha. The family has dominated Maharashtra politics for three generations in spite of internal turmoil.
The pantheon of Maharashtra’s dynastic politicians has gained another Pawar name with the upcoming induction of Sunetra Pawar into the Rajya Sabha. Sunetra is poised to become the fifth Pawar to hold public office, with family patriarch Sharad Pawar already serving in the Rajya Sabha, his daughter Supriya Sule in t, as well as his grandson Rohit and nephew Ajit in the Maharashtra Assembly.
Despite the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) split, Sunetra’s elevation to the Rajya Sabha after losing the Lok Sabha election in her family’s bastion of Baramati shows the Pawar family’s influence in Maharashtra politics.
The social and political climate of Maharashtra has been significantly impacted by the 11 offspring of Govindrao and Shardabai Pawar: seven sons and four girls, with Pawar being the eighth. The most well-known and prominent member of the Pawar clan is the 82-year-old MP, former Union Minister, Chief Minister, and businessman Pawar, but his ten siblings have achieved success in their own right.
Shardabai’s advocacy, which she connected to both the Congress and the Peasants and Workers Party, is credited with providing Pawar with his political foundation. Shardabai, one of the few female legislators in the Pune region, was elected without opposition in the 1938 local board elections. Pawar has frequently mentioned his mother and expressed gratitude to her for teaching her kids the value of perseverance and dedication to social problems.
The Pawar clan’s second generation stayed very close to one another, but as the third generation has grown, there are more indications that the family is splitting off. Like the rest of the family, Pawar’s nephew Ajit began his career in politics in the cooperative sector. Having stood by his side from 1991 to 1992, Pawar saw himself the obvious successor when he broke away from the Congress to found the NCP.
After nearly ten years as a junior minister, Ajit was promoted to the position of Cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government in 1999, at the age of forty. After that, he led prominent ministries including finance, water resources, irrigation, and rural development, which helped him increase his influence across the state, including in his own pocket borough in western Maharashtra.
Suriya Sule, Pawar’s daughter, entered politics in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, sparking rumors of discord in the NCP’s founding family. The involvement of Pawar’s grandnephew Rohit in politics was another source of annoyance for the Ajit faction. In the 2019 Karjat Jamkhed Assembly elections, Rohit ran and prevailed. The son of Rajendra and the grandson of Dinkarrao, Rohit is interested in Pune’s wines and agribusiness alongside his brother Ranjit.
Ajit broke down in public a few weeks prior to the 2019 Assembly elections when Pawar and he were named in a money laundering investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Ajit resigned as an MLA and went into hiding, claiming he was harmed.
Ajit’s insistence on nominating his son Parth from Maval in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was reportedly the reason behind Pawar’s decision to withdraw from the race. The two are said to have been even more enraged at Parth’s passing.
In order to form a brief government with the BJP in 2019, Ajit broke away from his uncle. Ajit eventually broke away for good in July 2023, splitting the NCP in the process, and allying with the BJP, but Pawar was able to outsmart his nephew and play a key role in his return to establish the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) administration.
The Pawar clan was similarly shattered by the NCP split, with the majority of the siblings choosing to support the elder Pawar. Over the past year, Ajit has frequently expressed in public his regret at being viewed as an outsider by his family. It is alleged that his own older brother Shriniwas ran a campaign against him, and there are already signs that his son Yugendra is being prepared to challenge Ajit in Baramati, his home district, in the Assembly elections later this year.
