Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nitin Nabin: High-profile lineup arrive for Ajit Pawar’s funeral

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and senior leaders across parties are expected in Baramati for the Maharashtra Deputy CM’s funeral with full state honours.

• Nitin Gadkari and Amit Shah to attend Ajit Pawar's funeral in Baramati
• Maharashtra declares three-day mourning, funeral with full state honours
• Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash, leaving a major void in state politics

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Baramati is witnessing an extraordinary gathering of India’s political leadership on Thursday as Union Ministers Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, BJP president Nitin Nabin arrive to pay their last respects to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar, who died in a plane crash on Wednesday morning.

The Maharashtra government has accorded Pawar a funeral with full state honours, underlining his four-decade-long influence on the state’s politics and administration. Three days of state mourning has been declared across Maharashtra till January 30.

List of high-profile dignitaries visiting Baramati today

Apart from the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, several senior leaders from across party lines are expected to be present in Baramati for the last rites.

Among those attending are Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and veteran leader Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar’s uncle and a towering figure in national politics.

Members of the state cabinet, MPs, MLAs and senior leaders from multiple parties are also expected, reflecting Pawar’s stature as a cross-party political heavyweight.

State honours funeral, heavy security in place

The final rites are scheduled for 11:00 am at Vidya Pratishthan, an educational institution closely linked to the Pawar family and Ajit Pawar’s political legacy. The national flag is flying at half-mast on all government buildings across the state during the mourning period.

A heavy security blanket has been thrown over Baramati, with additional police personnel deployed from neighbouring districts to manage the large influx of supporters, party workers and leaders expected to converge on the town.

Tragedy that shocked Maharashtra politics

Ajit Pawar, 66, popularly known as ‘Dada’, was killed when his chartered Learjet 45 crashed while attempting to land at Baramati airport. The crash also claimed four other lives, including two pilots, Pawar’s personal security officer and a flight attendant.

He was travelling to his home turf to campaign for the upcoming Zilla Parishad elections when the aircraft went down, cutting short a political career that shaped Maharashtra’s rural power structures and administrative machinery.

A town in mourning

Pawar’s mortal remains were kept overnight at the Vidya Pratishthan campus to allow the public to pay their respects. As supporters queued up in silence, chants of “Ajit Dada Amar Rahe” echoed through the streets, capturing the depth of emotion in a town that had long been his political bastion.

As Baramati prepares for the final farewell, the sheer scale of the political turnout underscores both Ajit Pawar’s influence, and the vacuum his sudden death leaves in Maharashtra’s power corridors.