Mumbai, April 3 Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP president Sunetra Pawar will file her nomination on April 6 for the upcoming by-election to the Baramati assembly constituency in Pune district, party sources said on Friday.
The by-election, to be held on April 23, was necessitated due to the death of Sunetra Pawar's husband and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar in a plane crash this year.
She is currently a Rajya Sabha member.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde are expected to be present when she files her nomination papers, the party sources said.
The nomination filing will be done after a public meeting in Baramati, they said.
Ajit Pawar, an eight-time MLA from his home constituency of Baramati, died along with four others on January 28 after the plane carrying them crashed near the Baramati airstrip.
In the 2019 assembly election, Ajit Pawar had won the Baramati seat by a margin of 1.65 lakh votes. In the 2024 assembly election, he retained the seat by a margin of over 1 lakh votes, defeating his brother's son Yugendra Pawar.
While the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) has declared that it will not contest the upcoming by-election in Baramati, its ally Congress has said it will not allow the election to be uncontested.
Sunetra Pawar took oath as the Deputy CM of the state on January 31, and was unanimously elected as the president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on February 26.
Besides Baramati, another assembly seat – Rahuri in Amravati district – will also witness a by-election on April 23. This was necessitated due to the death of BJP legislator Shivaji Kardile.
