Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an agriculturally valuable plant with widespread distribution in the world serving as a subsistence food crop as well as a source of various food products, and is frequently constrained by extreme environmental conditions such as drought. The study investigates the differential accumulation of osmolytes and leaf dry weight (LDW) along with relative water content (RWC) and lipid peroxidation in leaves of groundnut cultivars differing in their susceptibility to drought stress (cultivar K-134 and cultivar JL-24, drought tolerant and drought susceptible respectively) under water stress conditions, by keeping the soil moisture content as 100% (control), 75% (mild), 50% (moderate) and 25% (severe) of field capacity for a duration of 12 days.