Air charter crash in India's Maharashtra kills key state leader

The deputy chief minister of India's wealthiest state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, was killed on Wednesday , along with four people on board his charter aircraft that went down in flames

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Pawar, ⁠who hailed from a top political family, was en route to his home region ⁠to canvass in local body elections.



Two of his staff and two crew were also aboard the aircraft.



"No person on board has survived," it added in an initial statement.



Pawar backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in the state government, leading a faction that split in 2023 from the opposition Nationalist Congress Party.



Video showed billows of smoke rising from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across an open field.