Sushilkumar Shinde

Sushilkumar Shinde

Sushilkumar Shinde (Marathi: सुशीलकुमार शिंदे) (born September 4, 1941, Solapur, Maharashtra) is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He is currently the Cabinet Minister for Power in the Manmohan Singh government.

Sushilkumar Shinde (left) at the inauguration of the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference 2010.

Dalit background

He belongs to "Dhor Kakkaya"(DHOR s in Maharastra ), Dalit caste. He is leader of Congress Party. He is the first Dalit caste person to have become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He served as Chief Minister from January 18, 2003.

Encouraged by Sharad Pawar, he quit his sub-inspector's job to enter politics in 1971. He contested an assembly by-election from Karmala,Reserved Constituency For SC in Solapur three years later and won by 25,000 votes. In November that year, the late V P Naik, then the chief minister, made Shinde a junior minister in his government.

Shinde rejoined the Congress Party and the congress party and became the finance minister in new Vasantrao Patil government. Later he won Maharashtra State Assembly elections in 1978, 1980, 1985 and 1990.

He was elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra during July 1992 to March 1998. .

He acted as Sonia Gandhi's campaign manager in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh in 1999.

In 2002, he contested the election for the post of Vice-President of India against the National Democratic Alliance's candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and lost.

On October 30, 2004, he was appointed the Governor of Andhra Pradesh. He replaced Surjit Singh Barnala, who became the Governor of Tamil Nadu. He served as governor for slightly more than one year before resigning and leaving office on January 29, 2006.

Shinde was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha for second time from Maharashtra on March 20, 2006.

External links

• SolapurShine Shri. Sushilkumar Shinde.
• Profile on Rajya Sabha website
• "Sushilkumar Shinde to redeem Solapur for Congress" - rediff.com article dated February 20, 1998
• "V-P polls: Sushilkumar Shinde files nomination" - indiainfo.com article dated July 22, 2002
• "Shinde emerges as front-runner to replace Deshmukh" - rediff.com article dated January 14, 2003
• "NCP may back Sushilkumar Shinde for Maharashtra CM" - rediff.com article dated January 16, 2003
• Biography on rediff.com dated January 17, 2003
• "Sushilkumar Shinde wins trust vote" - rediff.com article dated January 22, 2003
• Speech given at Second India ASEAN Summit 2003 at website of FICCI
• "Sushil Kumar Shinde -- A force to reckon with" - HindustanTimes.com article dated September 8, 2004
• "Shinde appointed new Andhra Pradesh Governor" - expressindia article dated October 30, 2004

Political offices
Preceded by Suresh Prabhu	Minister of Power ?-present	Incumbent
Preceded by Vilasrao Deshmukh	Chief Minister of Maharashtra 16 Jan 2003 - 1 Nov 2004	Succeeded by Vilasrao Deshmukh
Government offices
Preceded by Surjit Singh Barnala	Governor of Andhra Pradesh 2004-2006	Succeeded by Rameshwar Thakur