Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP president Sunetra Pawar on Thursday lashed out at NCP (SP) working president and MP Supriya Sule for raising questions over the delay in registering an FIR in connection with the plane crash that killed senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, asserting that no one should politicise his death. Addressing the media in Pune, Sunetra Pawar said that the grief and void left by Ajit Pawar's passing cannot be comprehended by anyone outside the family, and that repeated media appearances would not yield new information in the investigation. "No one should attempt to repeatedly come before the media and politicise his death," she said, in an indirect but pointed reference to Sule's remarks a day earlier.
The exchange was triggered by Supriya Sule's press conference at the NCP (SP) office in Thane on Wednesday, where she sharply contrasted the swift police action against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) youth leader Amit Thackeray — booked within hours in a case linked to the removal of a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a Pune college — with what she called the government's inaction over her brother's death. "When a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is removed, a case is registered against Amit Thackeray within two hours. On the other hand, no FIR has been lodged yet in the death case of my brother Ajit Pawar," Sule had said, drawing a direct parallel between the two cases to question official priorities.
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Sunetra Pawar, who is also Ajit Pawar's wife, struck an emotional note while urging restraint. She asked who could possibly feel the pain of his loss more than his mother, wife and children, and said that the family too wanted the investigation into the crash to conclude at the earliest. "Ajit Pawar's passing has brought a dark cloud over the entire state of Maharashtra. Everyone expects the truth behind this tragedy to come out and the investigation findings to be announced as soon as possible," she remarked, adding that the family has met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders to press its case. She also noted that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had given an assurance on the floor of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly regarding the probe.
Ruling out any political compromise, Sunetra Pawar said the family has full faith in the law, the Constitution and the investigating agencies, and cautioned that frequent public discussions risked turning the matter into a media trial. "Repeatedly raising questions in front of the media does not guarantee new information or updates every time. One must also consider whether frequent discussions lead to a media trial," she stated. NCP (SP) legislator Rohit Pawar, Ajit's nephew, has been separately pressing the Mahayuti government on the status of the CID probe into the crash and what became of the parallel CBI inquiry sought by the family.
Ajit Pawar, a former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and one of the most prominent faces of the NCP, died on January 28 in a plane crash in Baramati, in Pune district. The political and emotional stakes around the investigation remain high, with the ruling faction and the opposition NCP (SP) — split since 2023 — continuing to spar over what each side describes as the right pace and direction of the probe. Thursday's rebuke, delivered in measured but firm terms, signalled that the ruling NCP would not tolerate any public questioning of the investigation process, even from members of Ajit Pawar's extended family.
