Sunetra Pawar, wife of late Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Ajit Pawar, took charge as deputy chief minister (CM) of Maharashtra at Mantralaya on Tuesday. She is the first woman deputy CM of the state. Ajit Pawar died in a deadly plane crash on January 28.
She was accompanied by her elder son Parth to the ceremony, along with NCP national working president Praful Patel, Maharashtra president Sunil Tatkare, and other senior leaders of the party. She is also expected to attend a meeting of NCP MLAs. She is also tipped to replace her husband as the new NCP president.
Sunetra will attend the state cabinet at noon, and will then go to New Delhi where she is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.
Sunetra was sworn in as the new deputy chief minister on January 31. She was allocated all the departments that were with her husband except finance, which is now the chief minister, and was also allotted Pawar’s favourite ‘Devgiri’ bungalow as her official residence at Malabar Hill.
Sunetra reached Mumbai early Tuesday morning to take charge. Before arriving, she took blessings at the Siddhivinayak temple and paid homage to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar by visiting Chaityabhoomi, Dadar, where Ambedkar was cremated.
Ajit Pawar was en route to Baramati to campaign for the Zilla Parishad elections on January 28 when his plane crashed. All those on board — Pawar, his personal security officer Vidip Jadhav, pilot-in-command Captain Sumit Kapur, first officer Captain Shambhavi Pathak and flight attendant Pinky Mali — were killed.