This Article is From Oct 20, 2014

Prithviraj Chavan's Career Hangs in Balance

Prithviraj Chavan's Career Hangs in Balance

File photo: Prithviraj Chavan (PTI)

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who is facing perhaps the toughest test of his political career, is closer to Delhi than to Mumbai.

A staunch Gandhi loyalist, Mr Chavan, a technocrat, was said to have been introduced to politics by the late Rajiv Gandhi.

From the relative obscurity of the backroom of the Prime Minister's office to the most coveted seat of power in Maharashtra, he reaped the reward for his integrity, professional ability and unflinching loyalty to 10 Janpath.

An engineer by profession, Mr Chavan graduated from BITS Pilani and got a Masters from the University of California. He had also been credited with research for the introduction of computerisation of Indian languages.

But Mr Chavan also comes from a political family. His father, prominent Congressman Anandrao Chavan, was the "diwan" of the Indore royalty and a well-known legal luminary, who served as minister in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.
Chavan Senior represented Karad Lok Sabha constituency from 1957 to 1971. After his death in 1974, his wife Premlata Tai held the seat in 1977, 1984 and 1989. In 1980, she was denied a ticket but appointed state Congress President.

Mr Chavan's first electoral foray was into the Lok Sabha - in 1991 from Karad. He went on to win the seat again in 1996 and 1998. After losing to NCP's Shriniwas Patil in 1999, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 and 2008.

Now, with Congress fortunes in Maharashtra in a reverse, Mr Chavan's future hangs in balance. The party maintains that in the assembly elections, the chief ministers were the face of the campaign. All guns are now trained on Mr Chavan.
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