Sharad Pawar

Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar is an Indian politician. Pawar served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for four terms and in the Union Council of Ministers as the Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of P.V. Narasimha Rao as well as the Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet of Manmohan Singh. He is the first and only president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he founded in 1999, after separating from the Indian National Congress. Currently, Pawar leads his faction of the NCP in the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Indian parliament. He is the chairperson of Maha Vikas Aghadi, a regional Maharashtra-based political alliance.