Sunetra Pawar unanimously elected as NCP national president

Nearly a month after Nationalist Congress Party chief Ajit Pawar’s sudden death, the party’s national conference on Thursday (February 26, 2026) unanimously elected his widow Sunetra Pawar as his successor, while his son Parth Pawar was chosen to represent the party in the Rajya Sabha.

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Praful Patel was re-elected as the NCP’s national working president, while Sunil Tatkare was unanimously re-elected as the president of the party’s Maharashtra unit. It was Mr. Patel who moved the motion to propose Ms. Pawar as national president, seconded by Mr. Tatkare.

Accepting the position in an emotional speech, Ms. Pawar said that while the new responsibility might be challenging for her, it would not be impossible. “Politics and social life are not new for me. I have lived with a storm named Ajit Pawar for 40 years. I have been connected with NCP, directly or indirectly over the last several years,” she said.

‘Focus on women’

Highlighting a vision for the party, she said it needed to spread in the urban areas, asking the NCP cadres to focus on women. “Shiv, Shahu, Phule, Ambedkar ideology was always followed by Ajit Dada and he never compromised on it. We too are never going to compromise on it. We will never leave any section of society behind and we will always walk together,” she said.

Speaking of her personal grief, she said she had kept it aside for the welfare of the State. “Only Jay and Parth are not my family. The entire NCP is my family,” she said, adding that a void had been created by Dada’s demise.

Senior leaders’ support

NCP leader and cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal expressed confidence that Ms. Pawar would prove herself in the role, though the responsibility might be new to her. “She has given her speech in three languages today. She has given an apt reply to those who criticised her as ‘gungi gudiya’. That was the criticism against Indira Gandhi in the early years. But we all saw how she proved them wrong,” he said. He added that there was nothing wrong with the family seeking a thorough probe into Ajit Pawar’s death.

Mr. Patel claimed that efforts were made to dictate terms to the party after Ajit Pawar’s demise. “We all see the kind of politics played by others after his death. They tried to dictate how we should run our party. We know how to take the right decisions at the right time,” he said.

Mr. Tatkare referred to the political developments of 2014, when he said that NCP founder Sharad Pawar had asked the party leaders to support the BJP from outside. “Several incidents happened after that. When [Ajit Pawar] finally decided to join the NDA in 2023, we all stood by him without compromising on our ideals,” he said.