NEW DELHI, March 2026 : Two members of the Pawar family are set to become Rajya Sabha MPs from Maharashtra this time. They belong to different parties, different political camps, and different generations. Sharad Pawar (85), the patriarch of the Pawar Parivar, is about to begin his third term in the Upper House of Parliament. Parth Pawar, son of Maharashtra’s former Deputy Chief Minister, late Ajit Pawar, and Sharad Pawar’s grandnephew, is looking to begin his first term as an MP.
In fact, for sometime there will be three Pawars in the Rajya Sabha as Maharashtra deputy chief minister Sunetra Pawar, mother of Parth, has not yet resigned from the Rajya Sabha.
The way things stand, three members of the Pawar family would be in Parliament at the end of the Rajya Sabha polls on March 16 — Sharad Pawar and Parth Pawar in Rajya Sabha, and Supriya Sule, daughter of Sharad Pawar, in Lok Sabha.
This year, seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra are going to the polls. MLAs vote in the Rajya Sabha election, and owing to the NDA’s stellar win in the 2024 Maharashtra election, six out of these seven seats are likely to go in its kitty. The BJP is set to win four, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena one and Ajit Pawar’s NCP one. That leaves only one seat for the Opposition.
Earlier, both the Congress and the Shiv Sena (UBT) had claimed the Rajya Sabha seat. Then, Sharad Pawar’s daughter and MP Sule went to Uddhav Thackeray’s residence to seek his party’s support. The Congress agreed to the senior Pawar’s name, apparently on the high command’s advice, once it became clear that the veteran leader wanted a third term in the Rajya Sabha.
Parth Pawar, 35, is the son of NCP chief Ajit Pawar, who died in a shocking plane crash this January. Ahead of Ajit Pawar’s death, his wife Sunetra Pawar became a Rajya Sabha MP. After the crash killed him, Sunetra Pawar replaced him as Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister, but she has not resigned from the Rajya Sabha yet. The NCP will nominate a candidate when a vacancy is created after her resignation.
Picture credit social media
