India, Feb. 1 -- Three days after Maharashtra deputy chief minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Ajit Pawar died in a plane crash, his widow Sunetra Pawar was sworn in as the state's first woman deputy chief minister on Saturday evening, even as the move deepened political and personal fault lines within the Pawar family.

The decision to elevate Sunetra Pawar has sharpened the rift between the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), with family patriarch Sharad Pawar saying he was neither informed nor consulted about the swearing-in.

Earlier in the day, Sunetra Pawar was elected leader of the NCP's legislative wing at a meeting attended by 38 of the party's 40 MLAs and seven of its eight MLCs, underscoring th...