Sunetra Pawar takes oath as Maharashtra's first woman deputy Chief Minister

• Sunetra Pawar became the first woman deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra after taking oath on January 31.

• She was allotted excise, sports, minority development and Auqaf departments, but not finance and planning which her late husband Ajit Pawar held. 

• The brief swearing-in ceremony at the Lok Bhavan in Mumbai took place three days after Ajit Pawar, NCP president and a deputy Chief Minister in the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP ‘Mahayuti’ government, died in an air crash in Baramati on January 28.

• Sunetra Pawar, 62, resigned her Rajya Sabha membership. 

• She is not a member of either house of the state legislature at present, and is expected to contest the byelection to the Baramati assembly constituency represented by her late husband.

• Sunetra, a commerce graduate born into a political family, mostly stayed away from politics until 2024 when she contested the Lok Sabha election from Baramati against her sister-in-law Supriya Sule and lost.