Pawar family tightens grip over NCP with elevation of Parth, Jay

Mumbai: In a move signaling the deepening consolidation of power within the Pawar household, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) national president Sunetra Pawar has inducted her sons, Parth and Jay, into the party’s powerful national working committee.

This move underlines the family’s firm grip over the regional outfit following the death of Ajit Pawar, the nephew of NCP (SP) supremo and family patriarch Sharad Pawar.

The appointments are being viewed in political circles as more than a routine organisational reshuffle. They come at a time when the NCP is witnessing intense internal churn and factional undercurrents following Ajit Pawar’s death in a plane crash on January 28.

By bringing both sons into the party’s central decision-making structure, Sunetra Pawar appears to have sent a clear message that the Pawar family intends to retain complete control over the party machinery and succession roadmap.

While elder son Parth Pawar (36), recently nominated to the Rajya Sabha, has been appointed national general secretary, younger son Jay Pawar (29) has been made national secretary and head of the party’s disciplinary committee — a strategically significant role in a party grappling with loyalty issues and internal power equations.

The NCP formally communicated the new appointments to the Election Commission of India through a letter dated April 29.

Sunetra Pawar (62) was elected MLA by a record margin from Baramati in the bypoll necessitated by Ajit Pawar’s death. Later, she resigned from the Rajya Sabha.

After Ajit Pawar's death, she was unanimously made the leader of the NCP legislature party, appointed Deputy CM and days later she formally took over as the party’s national president on February 26, marking one of the swiftest leadership transitions in Maharashtra politics.

The newly-constituted 22-member national working committee includes senior leaders such as Praful Patel, Sunil Tatkare, Chhagan Bhujbal and Dilip Walse-Patil. However, political observers also noted subtle signs of shifting equations within the party.

Though Patel and Tatkare remain influential figures, their designations as national working president and Maharashtra unit chief respectively were missing from the circulated office-bearers’ list, triggering speculation over possible recalibration within the party hierarchy.

Sensing the buzz, Sunetra Pawar issued a clarification on X, stating that the circulated list contained a “clerical mistake” which would be corrected soon.

The developments assume significance because since Ajit Pawar’s demise, the NCP has been witnessing a quiet but visible tussle among senior leaders over the party’s future leadership structure.

Against that backdrop, the simultaneous elevation of Parth and Jay is interpreted as an attempt to institutionalise the next generation of Pawar leadership before any alternative centres of power emerge within the organisation.

Both brothers had played an active role during the Baramati by-election campaign, extensively touring the constituency and mobilising support for their mother. Their formal induction into the party’s top organisational structure now marks the beginning of a more direct political role for the next generation of the Pawar family.