Ajit Pawar

Early life

Ajit Anantrao Pawar, popularly known as "Dada" was born on 22 July 1959 at his grandfather's place in Deolali Pravara, Ahmednagar district. He completed his schooling in Deolali, Pravara. He hails from the village of Katevadi in Baramati Taluka, Pune district. He is the Nephew of the Nationalist Congress Party President, Sharad Pawar.

Ajit Pawar is the son of Sharad Pawar's elder brother Anantrao Pawar. Anantrao had initially worked for renowned film maker, V.Shantaram's "Rajkamal Studios" in Mumbai. Ajit Pawar’s grandfather Govindrao Pawar was employed with Baramati Co-operative trading and his grandmother looked after the family farm. Pawar was pursuing his graduation but he had to leave formal education due to untimely death of his father, so he left college and started looking after his family, He is educated to Secondary school level and holds the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) from the Maharashtra State Board .

Political life

While Ajit Pawar was pursuing his education at Deolali Pravara, his Uncle, Sharad Pawar had become a rising political figure in the ruling Congress party. Therefore Ajit moved to Mumbai for his further education. After he completed his Education, he started his social work in Baramati via his Co-operative societies. His philanthropic side came to be recognized by the people and prominent leaders as well. Pawar made his foray into politics in 1982 when he was elected to a sugar cooperative body. He was elected chairman of the Pune District Co-operative Bank (PDC) in 1991 and remained in the post for 16 years. During this period he was also elected as Member of parliament, Lok Sabha from the Baramati. He later vacated his Lok Sabha seat in favour of his uncle, Sharad Pawar, who had then become defence minister in P. V. Narasimha Rao's government. Thereafter, he was elected as a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Baramati. Pawar was re-elected from the same constituency in 1995, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. He went on to become minister of state for Agriculture and Power (June 1991 - November 1992) in [[Sudhakarrao Naik]]'s government. Later he became minister of state for Soil Conservation, Power and Planning (November 1992 - February 1993) when Sharad Pawar returned to the state as chief minister. When the [[Indian National Congress]]-NCP coalition came into power in 1999, Pawar was promoted to cabinet minister, firstly in the Irrigation Department (October 1999 - December 2003) in [[Vilasrao Deshmukh]]'s government. He was given additional charge of the Rural Development Department (December 2003 - October 2004) in [[Sushilkumar Shinde]]'s government. When Congress-NCP combination returned to power in 2004 he retained the Water Resources Ministry in Deshmukh's government and later in Ashok Chavan's government. He also became the Guardian minister for Pune district in 2004 and held the post until the Congress - NCP coalition lost power in 2014.

Criticism and allegations of corruption

There are allegations that as the minister for water resources he spared no efforts to help in the development of Lavasa, a project touted as a "vision of Sharad Pawar". The Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (MKVDC) leased 141.15 ha (348.8 acres) to Lavasa in August 2002, which included part of Warasgaon dam reservoir. The lease between MKVDC and Lavasa was executed at rates far below the market rate.

In September 2012, there were accusations that there had been misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs. 700 billion (about $13 billion). These allegations were made by a Maharashtra bureaucrat, Vijay Pandhare, and caused Anjali Damani to request Pawar's resignation as a minister. However, the allegations were not proved and hence he was reinstated as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

He told the Indian Election Commission in 2004 that he had financial assets of more than 30 million Rupees at that time.

On 7 April 2013, Ajit Pawar in an attempt at being comical about his inability to bring waters to the dams, made a controversial statement with regards to an activist fasting for 55 days in Maharashtra against the current drought crisis. He quipped at a function at Indapur near Pune "If there is no water in the dam ... Should we urinate into it?," kicked off controversy in a state reeling under severe drought. Later, due to the political and media pressure, he apologized for the same and admitted his off the cuff comment was the biggest mistake of his life. He has been claimed to be the most corrupt politician in Maharashtra along with Sunil Tatkare, the then Irrigation minister. Many allegations of corruption have been made against him but none to date has been proven.

On 16 April 2014, Pawar visited Masalwadi, a village in the Baramati constituency from which his cousin Supriya Sule was contesting the general election, and threatened the villagers that if they did not vote for Sule, he would punish them by cutting off water supply to the village. Pawar may have violated the election code of conduct as campaigning is not permitted within the 48 hours prior to the close of polling.

Personal life

Ajit Pawar is married to Sunetra (Nee Nimbalkar Patil). They have two sons named, Parth Pawar and Jay Pawar.