Ajit Pawar cremated with full state honours; Amit Shah, Nabin attend funeral
Baramati (PTI): The last rites of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, killed in a plane crash, were held with full state honours on Thursday at Baramati in Pune district.
Union ministers Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, former Union minister Sharad Pawar and BJP president Nitin Nabin attended the 66-year-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief’s funeral at the Vidya Pratishthan ground at Baramati, around 100 km from Pune.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde were also present, along with Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra, who is a Rajya Sabha member, and sons Parth and Jay. Ajit Pawar's cousin Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha member from Baramati, and NCP working president and former Union minister Praful Patel were also present.
Thousands of people gathered for Ajit Pawar's last rites chanted "Ajit Dada amar rahe", when his mortal remains, draped in the national flag, were brought from his village Katewadi to the Vidya Pratishthan ground.
Shah, Gadkari, Nabin, Fadnavis, Union minister Ramdas Athawale, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Eknath Shinde, former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Andhra Pradesh minister Nara Lokesh were among the leaders who placed floral wreaths on Pawar's mortal remains.
Parth and Jay lit their father's funeral pyre.
On Thursday morning, the mortal remains of Ajit Pawar were taken from the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Hospital in Baramati, where they were kept overnight, to his village.
Pawar and four other persons on board the aircraft were killed after it crashed barely 200 metres from the edge of the tabletop airstrip.
The others killed in the tragedy were Captain Sumit Kapoor, who had a flying experience of 15,000 hours, co-pilot Capt. Shambhavi Pathak with 1,500 hours of flying, Personal Security Officer (PSO) Vidip Jadhav and flight attendant Pinky Mali.
Their mortal remains have been handed over to their families, hospital sources said.
Police have registered an accidental death report (ADR) case in connection with the plane crash, an official said.
The government Wednesday released a statement detailing the sequence of events that led to the crash and Ajit Pawar's death.
The aircraft was cleared for landing after a go-around due to poor visibility, but having finally received a clearance, it did not give any read-back to the ATC, and moments later burst into flames near the edge of the airstrip.
The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday said the "black box" (comprising the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorde) of the Learjet aircraft has been recovered.
VIDEO | Baramati: Leaders pay their last respects to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar at the Vidya Pratishthan ground.#Maharashtra #MaharashtraPlaneCrash #AjitPawar
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 29, 2026
(Full video available on PTI Videos – https://t.co/dv5TRAShcC) pic.twitter.com/thYvpPTp8j
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BJP walks out of Karnataka Assembly over state govt ad criticising Centre’s VB-G RAM G Act
Bengaluru (PTI): The Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Thursday witnessed uproar over a state government advertisement published in newspapers opposing the Centre’s VB-G RAM G Act, with the opposition BJP accusing the Siddaramaiah-led government of misusing taxpayers’ money for "false propaganda".
The House was briefly adjourned amid loud protests, even as the government defended the advertisement.
BJP members also staged a walkout, objecting to the state government’s criticism of the Centre and its decision to repeal the UPA-era Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and replace it with the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act.
The opposition further accused the government of "disrespecting" Mahatma Gandhi, alleging that the advertisement issued by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department featured caricatures of Gandhi in conversation with a man named Sangappa—depicted wearing a white shirt and khaki trousers, which the BJP claimed resembled an RSS uniform—highlighting alleged shortcomings of the Centre’s scheme compared to the earlier legislation.
Raising the issue in the Assembly, senior BJP MLA Suresh Kumar said, "There is a front-page advertisement in all newspapers. The government functions using taxpayers’ money."
"If the Congress party had issued an advertisement against the central government’s Act, that would have been acceptable. But such an advertisement issued by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department against the VB-G RAM G Act is not right," he added.
"This is a clear loot of taxpayers’ money by the government for false propaganda and vendetta politics," he alleged.
Defending the advertisement, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Priyank Kharge said the BJP appeared to suggest that the state government should accept everything the central government says "with folded hands and remain silent."
He maintained that the advertisement did not violate any law. "Let the BJP point out which law has been violated," Priyank said.
