India, Feb. 1 -- On a hazy evening in Mumbai, the political climate appeared charged as Ajit Pawar's widow, Sunetra Pawar, was sworn in as Maharashtra's deputy chief minister, catapulting her from the periphery of power to its very centre.

In a state that has had a long history of prominent and powerful women in the social arena, women politicians in consequential positions have been conspicuously missing. On Saturday, Sunetra Pawar breached a glass ceiling when she became the deputy chief minister.

But her swearing in within three days of Ajit Pawar's death has reopened the fault lines in Maharashtra's most politically consequential family. On Saturday morning, the family patriarch, Sharad Pawar, claimed he had no prior knowledge of Su...