Deputy CM Ajit Pawar Dies in Plane Crash
Mumbai: The deputy chief minister of Maharashtra Ajit Pawar, has been killed in a plane crash along with four other people.
The plane he was on from the state capital, Mumbai, crash-landed in a field at the airport in Pawar’s constituency of Baramati, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.
Images from the site show wreckage of the Learjet engulfed in flames and plumes of smoke. The cause of the crash is yet to be confirmed and is being investigated.
Two members of his staff and two crew were killed along with Pawar, officials said. He was one of the state’s most influential leaders, governing in coalition with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Pawar had been heading to his home region ahead of local body elections when he died.
“No person on board has survived,” the aviation regulator said.
Maharashtra’s politics have been turbulent in recent years, with established parties splitting into factions. Pawar himself broke away from his uncle’s party and was part of a coalition that governed the state along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.
The 66-year-old was affectionately called ‘dada’, a term for elder brother in the Marathi language, by party workers and the public.