Following the footsteps of the NCP president Sharad Pawar, his grand nephew Rohit Pawar has taken a plunge into the cricket administration. He has been elected unopposed as the President of the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA).

The Ajay Shirke panel, in which Rohit was a prominent candidate,swept the polls at an election to the managing committee of the Maharashtra cricket body held at the MCA International Stadium in Pune on Sunday.

An MLA from Karjat-Jamkhed constituency in Ahmednagar district, 37-year-old Rohit had been first elected  from the Affiliated Clubs category in the apex council before being unopposed as the president of the MCA. He succeeds Vikas Kakatkar.

“I have been working for sports in my own way. But, I have long been doing something for my favourite game of cricket.  Thanks to the blessings of @PawarSpeaks, I have now been elected as president of MCA,” Rohit tweeted immediately after his election as the MCA chief. “ Pawarsabheb has done a long work for the betterment of all kinds of sports.  Being an ordinary worker, I may not be able to achieve as much as Pawarsaheb has done. but I will look up to the beacon of Sahyadri heights and work honestly for the game under his guidance,” Rohit added.

Apart from Rohit, the other office bearers  who were unopposed are: Kiran Samant, Vice-president, Shubhendra Bhandarkar, Secretary, Santos Bobde, Joint secretary and Sanjay Bajaj, Treasurer.

Rohir was earlier for building a state-of-the-art cricket stadium in his family bastion of Baramati. Rohit is a fourth generation Pawar. He is the grandson of Sharad Pawar’s elder brother Appasahebn Pawar.

He has been in politics since 2017. Having been elected to the Pune Zilla Parishad first, Rohit was elected to the Maharashtra Assembly from Karjat Jamkhed in the 2019 elections. Rohit’s grand uncle Sharad Pawar was the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from 2005 to 2008.