Ajit Pawar revolts: Who is NCP's Jitendra Awhad - new leader of opposition in Maharashtra?

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday appointed party leader Jitendra Awhad as the Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly, after the former LoP Ajit Pawar took oath as a deputy chief minister in the Maharashtra government led by Eknath Shinde.

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Awhad reached the Maharashtra Speaker's office late on Sunday night to handover his appointment letter. Stating that he stood with Sharad Pawar, Awhad said if the NCP chief began calling up MLAs that were with Ajit Pawar, they will begin to clear up. He said, “These leaders should not forget the party made them ministers in the past 25 years. Now, they are deserting their leader (83-year-old Sharad Pawar) in his twilight years.”

Here are five things to know about Jitendra Awhad:

1. Jitendra Awhad, 59, is a three-time MLA of Mumbra-Kalwa in the Thane district. He is also a close associate of Sharad Pawar.
2. He got into politics as a student activist, he began protesting against rising tuition fees in Mumbai University in 1982. Awhad is said to have been greatly influenced by Sharad Pawar and had joined the students' wing of the Congress.
3. Awhad was appointed the Maharashtra National Students' Union of India (NSUI) chief secretary in 1988 and all-India NSUI's general secretary in 1991. In 1996, Awhad was appointed the president of the Maharashtra Youth Congress. When Sharad Pawar split from Congress, Awhad too joined the NCP. His loyalty to NCP chief has led to him being nominated as Maharashtra's Member of Legislative Council twice — in 2004 and 2008.
4. Awhad has served as Maharashtra's cabinet minister for Medical Education & Horticulture in 2014 and in 2019, as Housing Minister under Uddhav Thackeray's MVA government.
5. In 2020, Awhad was involved in a conspiracy where he and 15-20 other people had allegedly assaulted a civil engineer, who lived in Thane, for posting his morphed photographs. An FIR was filed against him and he was arrested.