Prithviraj Chavan Biography

About Prithviraj Chavan

Prithviraj Chavan was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra from November 11, 2010 to September 2014. He succeeded Ashok Chavan as Maharashtra CM after the former’s government was under fire from the opposition over the issue of Adarsh Society scam. In a recent interview, Prithviraj said that the Congress party would have split in Maharashtra if he took action against his predecessors - Ashok Chavan, Sushil Kumar Shinde, and Vilasrao Deshmukh - on the basis of Adarsh Report.

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After Ashok Chavan ruckus in the political arena, President of Congress Sonia Gandhi chose low-profile Prithviraj Chavan for the CM’s position mainly because of his clean and non-controversial image. Before assuming the responsibilities of CM’s chair, Prithviraj had earlier held five important portfolios during the UPA regime at the centre.

Prithviraj Chavan’s Early Life

Prithviraj Chavan was born on March 17, 1946 to a Marathi family - Dajisaheb Chavan (father) and Premalakaki Chavan (mother) - in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore. His father’s name is. His two younger siblings are Vidyulata Venkatrao Ghorpade and Nirupama Ajitrao Yadav-Deshmukh. Prithviraj is married to Satvasheela and the couple is blessed with a son Jai and daughter named Ankita.

Politics runs through Prithviraj’s blood as his father and mother both were involved in politics. Dajisaheb was not only Member of Parliament from 1957 to 1973 from Karad constituency but also minister in the Union Government under the prime ministership of Pandit Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shashtri, and Indira. His mother was MP from Karad constituency in the years 1973, 1977, 1984, and 1989.

  Prithviraj started his schooling in a Municipal school in Karad. When his parents moved to Delhi he got admitted to a Hindi medium school called Nutan Marathi School. He did his graduation from Birla Institute of Technology and Science of Pilani on Mechanical Engineering. He also got UNESCO scholarship in the year 1967. He has done his masters from the University of California. After completing his studies Chavan worked as a design engineer in the USA. His core areas of expertise included audio recorder designing for anti-submarine warfare and aircraft instrumentation. In 1974 he returned to India to become an entrepreneur.

 

Political Career of Prithviraj Chavan

Prithviraj’s trajectory of life changed once he chanced upon to meet and talk to Rajiv Gandhi. He became a member of Indian National Congress. It is not known to many that Prithviraj Chavan was the main architect behind civil nuclear liability bill. In the year 1991, he first became Member of Parliament and in 2002 he became Rajya Sabha member.

Chavan is generally referred in the media as an efficient technocrat who has always maintained cordial relation with Congress High Command, which helped him rise in party ranks steadily. He became an important face in erstwhile PM Manmohan Singh’s team and went on to become Minister of Science and Technology. He has also successfully fulfilled his responsibilities as in-charge of two Pradesh Committees - Haryana as well as Jammu and Kashmir. He was not only the main brains behind formulating civil nuclear liability bill but also took the pain of creating consensus on the controversial issue.

Prithviraj Chavan was member of several committees including Provision of Computers to Members of Parliament; Finance and Planning; Science and Technology. He also became All India Congress Committee’s Spokesperson in 2000-01. Prithviraj was Minister of State in PMO from 2004 to 2009 and from May 28, 2009 and onwards.

He won Karad South seat by over 14,000 votes in the recent Assembly polls, though his party suffered huge losses.
WBDB20.10.2014
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