India, Jan. 30 -- The sudden death of deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar has presented the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with two immediate challenges: choosing a senior leader as deputy chief minister and finding someone to fill Pawar's shoes as finance minister.

Discussions within the NCP will formally begin after the three-day mourning period ends on Saturday. Pawar, who died in a plane crash in Baramati on Wednesday, was both deputy chief minister and finance minister in the Mahayuti government.

The NCP's choice of deputy chief minister, however, will not be determined by internal consensus alone. The leader will also be vetted by the BJP, the senior partner in the three-party ruling Mahayuti alliance, of which the NCP is a constit...