India, Jan. 28 -- The political landscape of Maharashtra was irrevocably altered at 8:45 am on Wednesday, January 28, when a chartered Learjet 45 private jet carrying deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and four others crashed during a landing attempt at the airport in his family hometown Baramati.

The tragedy plunges one of India's most powerful political dynasties into mourning, and put a question mark on the future of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that he led.

The death of the leader popularly known as 'Dada' ('brother') is politically poignant also because it occurred just as the two factions of the NCP - one led by Ajit and the other by his uncle and family patriarch Sharad Pawar with his daughter Supriya Sule - appeared to be ...