The Aryavarth Express Baramati (Maharashtra): Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP National President Nitin Nabin, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday attended the last rites of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar at the Vidya Pratishthan ground in Baramati.
Ajit Pawar, the longest-serving Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra (non-consecutively), died a day earlier when the chartered aircraft he was travelling in crashed near the landing runway of Baramati airport.
Amit Shah, along with Nitin Gadkari, Devendra Fadnavis and Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, paid floral tributes and offered their final respects to the senior Nationalist Congress Party leader.
Pawar’s sons, Parth and Jay Pawar, performed the last rites of their father, while his wife Sunetra Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP, also paid her last respects. Drone visuals from the venue showed a massive gathering of mourners at the Vidya Pratishthan ground, reflecting the scale of public grief over Pawar’s death.
Meanwhile, the last rites of Vidip Dilip Jadhav, the personal security officer (PSO) of Ajit Pawar who also died in the crash, were performed by his family in their native village in Satara on Wednesday night. His young son carried out the final rituals. Jadhav was among the five people on board the ill-fated chartered aircraft, all of whom lost their lives in the accident.
Reacting to the incident, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut demanded a thorough and transparent investigation into the plane crash, stating that condolences alone were not sufficient. He raised concerns over repeated charter flight accidents across the country and questioned whether technical faults, radar failures or airport-related issues were responsible.
“A towering leader like Ajit Pawar, the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, has died in a plane crash. Not just Maharashtra, but the entire country is in shock. How did this happen? What technical fault occurred? The truth must come out before the public so that such tragedies can be prevented in the future,” Raut said while addressing the media.
