Explained : Ajit Pawar Death Revives Dynastic Fault Lines in Indian Politics (2026) and Its Impact

Dear Reader,

The sudden death of Ajit Pawar in a plane crash on January 28 has sent shockwaves through the Nationalist Congress Party faction he led. By several accounts, that faction was close to reuniting with the parent party headed by his uncle, Sharad Pawar.

The 66-year-old Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra was travelling from Mumbai to Baramati when his Learjet 45 crashed while attempting to land at the tabletop airstrip in his home constituency. Five people were killed, including both pilots.

Ajit Pawar’s faction was still finding its footing. It took shape in July 2023, when he led a group of senior leaders, including Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare, out of the NCP, arguing that his 85-year-old uncle should step aside for younger leadership. Ajit joined the Mahayuti alliance and became Deputy Chief Minister for the sixth time. In February 2024, the Election Commission of India awarded his faction the party name and the “clock” symbol.

Family rifts in Indian politics, though, rarely last. According to Kiran Gujar, a close associate of Ajit Pawar for over four decades, the late leader had told him just five days before the crash that a merger with the Sharad Pawar faction was near. The two sides had already fought the January 15 civic elections in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad together and planned to carry that alliance into the zilla parishad elections next month.

With Ajit gone, the question of succession now hangs over the party. The contest may narrow to Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter, and Sunetra Pawar, Ajit’s widow. Both factions have senior leaders, but the Pawars’ own history suggests leadership will stay within the family. Only the elder Pawar, frail but still politically sharp, can hold the camps together—if a merger happens at all.

This is not the first time a sudden accident has ended a political career and unsettled a party or a State. Indian political history is dotted with such moments, each followed by succession battles and shifts in power.

The death of Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy in September 2009 remains etched in Andhra Pradesh’s memory. At the height of his power, after leading the Congress to victories in 2004 and 2009, YSR was killed when his helicopter crashed in the Nallamala Hills during bad weather. He was 60. The Congress high command chose K. Rosaiah as Chief Minister, and later N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, instead of his son Jagan Mohan Reddy. Jagan broke away, formed the YSR Congress Party, and over time wiped out the Congress in the State, much as Mamata Banerjee had done in West Bengal. Andhra Pradesh politics now swings between regional forces, with the Congress marginalised and the BJP rising from the edges.

A similar rupture followed the death of Madhavrao Scindia in a plane crash in September 2001 while flying to a rally in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress lost power in Madhya Pradesh in 2003 and stayed out for 15 years. When it returned in 2018 under Kamal Nath, the spell was short. In 2020, Madhavrao’s son Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to the BJP, bringing down the government.

Former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani died in the Air India Flight 171 crash in June 2025, when a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London went down seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 241 of the 242 people on board. The crash also killed medical students in the hostel the aircraft struck, and raised serious questions about aviation safety. Politically, though, Rupani’s death caused little churn. There was no succession fight, no dynasty pressing a claim within the BJP’s Gujarat unit.

Road accidents have claimed their share of political lives as well. Rajesh Pilot, the Congress leader from Rajasthan and a former Union Minister, died in June 2000 when his jeep collided with a State transport bus on his way to Jaipur airport. He was 55 and preparing to challenge Sonia Gandhi for the party presidency. His son Sachin Pilot later inherited his political legacy, but the loss left a gap the party struggled to fill. Gopinath Munde, the BJP leader from Maharashtra, died in June 2014 when a speeding taxi hit his car in New Delhi, just eight days after he took oath as Union Rural Development Minister. He was 64. Sahib Singh Verma, former Delhi Chief Minister, died in a road accident in Rajasthan in June 2007.

The most consequential air crash in Indian political history remains that of Sanjay Gandhi in June 1980. Indira Gandhi’s younger son, who had emerged as the real power centre during the Emergency, died while performing aerial stunts in a Pitts S-2A aircraft near Safdarjung airport. He was 33. The official inquiry blamed poor weather and pilot error.

The Congress never recovered its old shape. Sanjay was widely seen as his mother’s heir. His death pushed Rajiv Gandhi, a reluctant entrant with no taste for politics, into public life. After Rajiv’s assassination in May 1991, power passed to Sonia Gandhi and now, for all practical purposes, to Rahul Gandhi. Sanjay’s widow Maneka and their son Varun sought a political future in the BJP.

The list is long. Dorjee Khandu, Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, died in a helicopter crash near Tawang in April 2011. O.P. Jindal, Haryana’s Power Minister, and Surender Singh, the State’s Agriculture Minister, were killed in a helicopter crash near Saharanpur in March 2005. G.M.C. Balayogi, the Lok Sabha Speaker, died in a helicopter crash in Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna district in March 2002.

Each such death invites conspiracy theories, whether Sanjay Gandhi’s, Madhavrao Scindia’s, or Rajesh Pilot’s. They have surfaced now after Ajit Pawar’s.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called for a Supreme Court-monitored probe, alleging that “all other agencies” are “completely compromised”. Sharad Pawar, however, moved quickly to dampen speculation. “Some incidents have no politics behind them,” he said in Baramati. “There’s no conspiracy involved; it’s purely an accident.” The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is now investigating the crash.

Online, the exchanges turned bitter. One user cited the deaths of Rupani and Ajit Pawar to attack the ruling party. Another fired back with the Congress’s own list—Sanjay Gandhi, Madhavrao Scindia, YSR, Dorjee Khandu, Rajesh Pilot. “Don’t be political vultures,” the response read. “Debate policies, not coffins.”

Politicians are in the public eye in death as much as in life. Whether by road or by air, a sudden end sends ripples through the system, rejigging loyalties and reopening questions of power. Ajit Pawar had rebelled against his uncle, saying Sharad Pawar was too old to lead. Now, the NCP might again veer towards the elder Pawar, not by choice but by circumstance. Politics has a way of delivering such ironies.

Write and tell us what you make of this turn of events.

Until the next newsletter,

Anand Mishra, Political Editor, Frontline

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