Mumbai: Sunetra Pawar, wife of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar, will be sworn in as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister on Saturday evening, becoming the first woman to hold the post in the state.
She was unanimously elected leader of the NCP legislative party at around 2 pm. The oath-taking ceremony is scheduled for 5 pm.
A meeting of the NCP legislative party and party members from the Legislative Council was convened at the Vidhan Bhavan to elect the new leader. Senior party leader Dilip Walse Patil proposed Sunetra Pawar’s name, which was approved without opposition.
Ahead of taking oath as deputy chief minister, Sunetra Pawar resigned from her post as a Rajya Sabha member.
The post of deputy chief minister had fallen vacant following the death of Ajit Pawar in a plane crash in Baramati on January 28.
