Rohit Pawar claims Eknath Shinde may have been target before Ajit Pawar

Sharad Pawar faction MLA Rohit Pawar on Wednesday made a sensational claim suggesting that Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde may have been the intended target of an aircraft-related incident even before the plane crash that killed Ajit Pawar in late-January.

Addressing a press conference at the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre in Mumbai, Pawar alleged that Shinde’s aircraft had faced a suspected targeting attempt during his visit to Davos in January 2023.

The remarks come amid continuing political controversy surrounding the 28 January aircraft crash in Baramati that led to Ajit Pawar’s death. Pawar said the preliminary report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau contained several inconsistencies and raised more questions than answers.

According to Rohit Pawar, Shinde travelled to Davos between 16 and 20 January 2023, aboard an aircraft operated by VSR. He claimed that after refuelling, the aircraft passed through Iranian airspace and received a warning. The plane then moved into Iraqi airspace, where it allegedly received another warning before leaving that zone as well.

Pawar said the aircraft had received clearance from all relevant countries before proceeding to Zurich. “Our question is whether what happened to Ajit Pawar was also going to happen to Eknath Shinde earlier,” he said.

Shinde, who was chief minister of Maharashtra at the time of the Davos trip, is currently serving as deputy chief minister in the BJP-led Mahayuti government in the state. Ajit Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party is also part of the ruling coalition.

Neither Shinde nor the state government had responded to Pawar’s claims at the time of reporting.

Rohit Pawar also criticised the preliminary investigation report into Ajit Pawar’s plane crash, alleging several discrepancies. He said the report stated that the aircraft tilted to the right before the crash, whereas videos of the incident appeared to show the plane tilting to the left.

The report also mentioned that the aircraft collided with trees before crashing. Pawar questioned this claim, stating that there were no trees at the accident site.

Interestingly, senior leader Chhagan Bhujbal from Ajit Pawar’s faction also raised doubts about the same point. “If the aircraft had hit trees, someone would surely have seen it. Why did no one see the plane hitting trees?” Bhujbal reportedly said.

Rohit Pawar further alleged that some individuals may have surveyed the crash site before the accident and demanded a criminal investigation into the incident.

The MLA said that in a 2023 report on another VSR aircraft accident, the investigating officer had been named. However, in the report on Ajit Pawar’s crash, no investigating officer had been mentioned. He also pointed out that an aviation company representative had confirmed that visibility conditions were good at the time, while the report suggested otherwise.

Pawar questioned how the aircraft had been allowed to take off from a location with allegedly low visibility and called for these aspects to be examined in detail.

Clarifying his position, Pawar said he was not targeting either the aviation company involved or the aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. “I am not against the VSR company or the DGCA. I am speaking so that the truth behind what happened can come before the public,” he said.

However, he alleged that attempts might be underway to shield the company from scrutiny and warned that political pressure could affect the fairness of the investigation.

Pawar also accused VSR Ventures of negligence and said there were concerns that the truth about whether Ajit Pawar’s death was an accident or something more serious might never fully emerge unless a transparent probe was conducted.