Rajendra Pandharpure

The death of Ajit Pawar has unsettled western Maharashtra, leaving the BJP cautiously biding its time Pune: Western Maharashtra has long been Indian politics in miniature: dense with sugar cooperatives, caste arithmetic, money and muscle power. For decades it was shaped by one extended family – the Pawars - whose writ ran from district banks to dairy unions and from assembly halls to village panchayats. The sudden death of Ajit Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) strongman and...

Ajit Pawar’s sudden death has left allies, rivals and Pune city itself groping for its bearings. For a brief moment, Pune’s politics looked unusually tidy. The municipal election results delivered a decisive verdict: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the undisputed winner, its dominance unchallenged even by partners within the ruling alliance. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) faction led by Ajit Pawar, though part of the same governing arrangement at the state level, trailed...

Maharashtra’s most agile politician finds that even political acrobatics have a breaking point NCP (Sharad Pawar) State President Shashikant Shinde and party MLA Rohit Pawar during a rally in Navi Mumbai on Sunday. | Pic: PTI Pune: In Maharashtra’s labyrinthine politics, few figures are as deft or as difficult to read as Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Ajit Pawar. As nephew of Sharad Pawar, the NCP’s grand old man, Ajit has spent the past three years perfecting a...