Pawar family skips Diwali amid drought and Ajit Pawar’s death

Baramati – On Monday, Rohit Pawar, a legislator of the Nationalist Congress Party (SP), visited the shrine of his late uncle Ajit Pawar, laid a wreath and then addressed reporters. He used the occasion to explain why the Pawar household will not observe Diwali this year.

The two reasons he gave were: first, the sudden passing of Ajit Pawar in an accident, and second, the worsening drought across Maharashtra that is threatening crops, livestock and the livelihoods of daily‑wage workers.

Pawar also responded to criticism surrounding the AI data‑centre being planned near Ujjani dam. He clarified that he was objecting to the physical data‑centre infrastructure, which acts like a massive warehouse for servers, rather than the broader concept of artificial intelligence.

According to him, such centres demand enormous water for cooling, create few permanent jobs, and can raise local temperatures by several degrees within a 10‑15 km perimeter, alongside heightened noise and pollution. He contrasted this with the arguments of Shrad Pawar, who had spoken about AI technology itself.

Linking the issue to global politics, Rohit Pawar remarked that the backlash against AI data‑centres contributed to former US President Donald Trump’s defeat in the mid‑term elections. He warned that if Maharashtra’s BJP backs similar low‑employment, high‑water‑use projects while water‑saving chip‑manufacturing heads to Gujarat, the party could face a comparable political setback.