Maharashtra’s Everyday Hero: Shri Ajit Pawar

Who needs a super hero when Maharashtra has its very own everyday common man’s hero? The leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, Shri Ajit Pawar has been making quite a name for himself as a good human being first and a politician later.

Last week, the Nationalist Congress Party leader Shri Ajit Pawar was in the news for noticing a car filled with five injured passengers on the highway outside Tiroda, near Nagpur, and rushing them to nearby hospitals, thus saving their lives. But this is not the first time that the former Deputy Chief Minister has played the role of a Good Samaritan within the state. Just a few weeks ago, on the 8th of May, Ajit Dada spotted another victim of a road accident on the Mahabaleshwar Panchgani ghat and got him personally escorted to a neighbouring hospital, in his own vehicle.

While the five passengers in Tiroda had been trapped in a car after crashing into a stationary truck when Shri Ajit Pawar rushed to their aid, the incident earlier in May involved a youth on a motorcycle who was lying on the road, barely conscious, after an unexpected collision. Ajit Dada had been returning from a marriage ceremony in Mahableshwar when, at around 9 pm, he happened to notice the figure of a young boy lying prone. Without regard for his own safety, he helped the wounded youth into his own car and arranged for him to be transferred to hospital.

With the help of party Nationalist Congress Party activist Ravi Raja Taware Lakhe and his associate assistant Sunil Mussale, Mr Ajit Pawar arranged for the young man, whose name was later confirmed to be Santosh Bajrang Jadhav, to Kranti Singh Nana Patil district hospital in Satara. The hospital was given specific instructions to ensure that adequate attention was provided to the victim, who is currently out of danger.

Many witnesses of road accidents are understandably wary of helping an injured victim due to time constraints and a fear of unnecessary paperwork, Shri Ajit Pawar has set a wonderful example to the common man of putting selfless humanitarian service before personal gain. Our country has a high incidence of death following an accident due to delay in reaching the injured person to a hospital. Especially with regard to road accidents, research suggests that India tops the list of resulting deaths. However, the Supreme Court has enacted a Good Samaritan law to encourage passersby to help accident sufferers, and to make the experience in hospitals free of legal and procedural hassles for them.

It requires genuine concern as well as keen eyesight to be able to spot and help an injured motorist on the highway, and in both these incidents, Mr Ajit Pawar showed himself to be a real savior to the accident victims. In a similar incident, Nationalist Congress Party supremo and Ajit Dada’s uncle Shri Sharad Pawar had also extended help to four victims of an accident in Bhiwapur while he was on the way to Gadchiroli. It is clear that the humanitarian spirit runs in the Pawar blood.