Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for four terms and has also served in the Union Council Of Ministers as the Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of P.V. Narsimha Rao and Minister of Agriculture in the
Cabinet of Manmohan Singh. He is the first and former president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which he founded in 1999, after separating from the Indian National Congress. His NCP was split by his nephew, Ajit Pawar. He leads his faction of the NCP delegation 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.