Amid loud echoes of praises in the air showering on Bharatiya Janata Party leader and modern Maharashtra 'Chanakya' Devendra Fadnavis who made a heroic return as the Chief Minister, there is another shrewd leader who deserves equal commendations. Defying predictions of his political eclipse after a bitter party split, Sharad Pawar's nephew and National Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar achieved what was assumed close to impossible, especially after a poor show in the Lok Sabha elections, in which his NCP camp won only one seat, while his uncle's fraction bagged eight seats. Junior Pawar-led camp won 41 of the 59 seats it contested in the Maharashtra Assembly elections 2024. Now, he took oath as the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister again for the record sixth time. He will probably get his favourite Finance portfolio in the new Mahayuti government.
More than a year after he rebelled against NCP founder and uncle, he has now firmly come out of the shadow of his formidable uncle and cemented his place in the state politics. A six-time deputy CM under different governments across party lines, 65-year-old junior Pawar has not concealed his chief ministerial ambitions, but that dream has still remained unfulfilled. Despite remaining at the centre stage of Maharashtra politics since 1991, the chief minister post remained far away from him. He, on several occasions, complaint his uncle for not insisting on the CM post when NCP was in power ally Congress in the state.
The NCP head has been the deputy CM thrice since 2019. He also served on the post twice in the Congress-NCP regimes before 2014.
Five years ago, Ajit Pawar took oath as the deputy CM in an early morning ceremony with BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister on November 23, 2019, only to resign three days later, leading to the collapse of the short-lived government.
He later became the deputy CM in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Uddhav Thackeray. Last year, he joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP government in the state, becoming the deputy CM again and causing a split in the NCP founded by his uncle. Ajit Pawar is the son of Sharad Pawar's elder brother Anantrao Pawar, who passed away when Ajit was 18 years old. He followed Sharad Pawar's footsteps into politics in 1982 when he was elected on the board of a sugar cooperative.
Here's the timeline of Ajit Pawar's tenure as Maharashtra Deputy CM
| Tenure | Government |
| December 5 onward | Devendra Fadnavis government |
| July 2, 2023 – December 5, 2024 | Eknath Shinde government |
| December 30, 2019 – June 29, 2022 | Uddhav Thackeray government |
| November 23, 2019 – November 26, 2019 | Devendra Fadnavis government |
| October 25, 2012 – September 26, 2014 | Prithviraj Chavan government |
| November 10, 2010 – September 25, 2012 | Prithviraj Chavan government |
