Expressing grief over the tragic death of Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar recently, home minister Amit Shah had said that Ajit’s untimely death “has created such a void in Maharashtra politics that it will not be filled for a long time”. Shah’s statement, beyond its political import, means different things to different people. For the death of a mass leader who commanded a strong position in the state’s politics, more so after he parted ways with his uncle, Sharad Pawar, by splitting the Nationalist Congress Party three years ago, has many implications not only for his party and the faction headed by his uncle, but also for the state’s politics.

For the tripolar alliance, of which Ajit Pawar was one of the strong leaders, his death is likely to change the political equation within the ruling alliance—weakening the NCP’s political heft. This will help Eknath Shinde, according to political analysts, emerge as a strong regional force to influence and shape political outcomes. This is largely because Sunetra Pawar’s hasty succession to the posts of state NCP legislature party leader and Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister does not carry the same political weight that her late husband—a mass leader with strong grassroots connections in western Maharashtra and deep roots in cooperative societies, banking, and agriculture—did in the NCP, in the alliance, as well as in the state’s muddled political ecosystem. So, where does all this leave the NCP now?

Forced to step into a frontline leadership role by fate, Sunetra faces many political and organisational challenges........

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