Ajit Pawar Killed in Baramati Plane Crash, Maharashtra Loses a Towering Political Figure

Deputy Chief Minister dies along with four others as chartered Learjet crashes during emergency landing; three days of state mourning announced

KalimNews, January 28, 2026, Delhi: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar died on Wednesday morning after the chartered aircraft carrying him crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Baramati airport, plunging the state’s already fractured political landscape into deep uncertainty and leaving his party facing an unclear future. Pawar was 66.

The crash claimed the lives of all five people on board the Mumbai–Baramati flight, including Pawar, two pilots and two members of his security detail—one personal security officer and one attendant. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) confirmed the fatalities in a statement, saying the aircraft may have crashed due to poor visibility while making a second landing attempt at Baramati’s table-top runway.

The aircraft, a 16-year-old Bombardier Learjet 45 operated by Delhi-based charter company VSR, was attempting to land at around 8.40 am when it went down at the threshold of runway 11. Eyewitnesses said the jet burst into flames immediately on impact. Visuals from the site showed the aircraft completely destroyed, reduced to ashes, with debris scattered across the area and thick plumes of smoke billowing skyward.

CCTV footage from a highway camera minutes away from the airport captured the moment at 8.46:02 am when a fireball erupted, marking the crash of the jet carrying the Deputy Chief Minister and four others. Data from Flightradar24 indicated that the aircraft left Mumbai at 8.10 am, briefly disappeared from radar at 8.34 am, reappeared minutes later, and then went silent again at 8.43 am while attempting a second landing. An eyewitness said the plane crashed nearly 100 feet short of the runway. Available data suggested the jet was flying at an altitude of about 1,016 metres and a speed of 237 kilometres per hour when contact was lost, roughly 20 kilometres from the airport.

The pilots were identified as Captain Sumit Kapoor, a Delhi resident with 16,000 hours of flying experience, and co-pilot Sambhavi Pathak, also from Delhi. Such was the intensity of the crash that Ajit Pawar’s body was identified through his watch and clothing, officials said.

In a tragic twist of fate, Pawar—who was born in Baramati and built his political career from the constituency—died in the same town where he was scheduled to address four public meetings ahead of the Zilla Parishad elections later in the day.

The Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed that the Learjet 45 (VT-SSK), operated by VSR, had five personnel on board and that none survived the crash. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced that the incident would be thoroughly investigated.

Ajit Pawar, popularly known as ‘Dada’, was one of the most influential and controversial figures in Maharashtra politics. Born on July 22, 1959, in Deolali Pravara in Ahmednagar district, he hailed from one of the state’s most powerful political families. He was the son of Anantrao Pawar, the elder brother of veteran leader Sharad Pawar. The family’s close association with farming and the cooperative movement shaped Ajit Pawar’s early political outlook and laid the foundation for his rise.

Pawar entered politics at a young age following his father’s death, which forced him to end his formal education at the Secondary School Certificate level. With Sharad Pawar already an established Congress leader, Ajit Pawar found his footing early, being elected at 23 to the board of a cooperative sugar factory in Baramati. His first major electoral success came in 1991, when he won the Baramati Lok Sabha seat—his only parliamentary contest. He later shifted decisively to state politics, winning the Baramati Assembly seat, a Pawar family bastion, and going on to serve as an MLA from the constituency for eight terms, often by massive margins.

In 1999, when Sharad Pawar split from the Congress to form the NCP, Ajit followed him. With sharp tactical skills, he quickly emerged as one of the party’s most powerful leaders. At just 40, he became the youngest Cabinet minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Congress government, handling the crucial irrigation portfolio. Over the next decade, across different governments, he held key ministries including water supply, rural development, finance and energy.

Through his grip on cooperatives and local institutions, particularly in western Maharashtra, Pawar built an independent political base. As his influence grew, so did tensions within the Pawar family, especially with the rise of Sharad Pawar’s daughter, Supriya Sule. Speculation about rifts over succession and control frequently surfaced in public discourse.

Dramatic political realignments became a hallmark of Pawar’s career. In November 2019, he stunned the state by taking oath as Deputy Chief Minister alongside BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis in an early-morning ceremony, after the Shiv Sena declined to form a government with the BJP. The experiment collapsed within days, and when Uddhav Thackeray became Chief Minister with the support of the Congress and the NCP, Pawar once again served as Deputy Chief Minister.

The most definitive break came in 2023, when Pawar led a vertical split in the NCP, broke away from his uncle’s faction and joined the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance led by Eknath Shinde, himself a rebel from the Shiv Sena. Pawar became Deputy Chief Minister yet again and continued in the role after the Mahayuti’s decisive victory in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections.

Over his long career, Pawar served as Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister six times, making him the longest non-consecutively serving holder of the post. He worked alongside Chief Ministers Prithviraj Chavan, Devendra Fadnavis, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde. The ambition of becoming Chief Minister himself, however, remained unfulfilled.

Ajit Pawar is survived by his wife, Sunetra Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP and daughter of former Maharashtra minister Padamsinh Bajirao Patil, and their two sons. While Parth Pawar entered politics and unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Jay Pawar, a businessman, has maintained a low public profile.

Tributes poured in from across the political spectrum following the news of Pawar’s death. The Governors of Maharashtra and Gujarat, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal, and senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi expressed shock and deep sadness over the untimely demise. The Maharashtra government declared a holiday across the state and announced three days of state mourning as a mark of respect.

As emergency services personnel and local residents gathered around the smouldering wreckage at Baramati, many struggled to comprehend the scale of the loss. On Wednesday, Maharashtra lost not only one of its tallest political leaders, but a figure regarded by many farmers and labourers as their ‘dada’—a leader whose influence shaped the state’s politics for more than three decades.