Cong face with clean image, Prithviraj Chavan gets shock defeat in polls

The defeat of Congress veteran and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan in the Maharashtra assembly polls in his home district Karad has come as a shock and big setback for him in his decades long political career.

One of the most educated lawmakers in the state, Chavan's career saw him becoming the chief minister of the state and also a Union minister.

Known for his clean and non-controversial image, Chavan, 78, took over as the state's chief minister when the Congress was battling allegations of corruption 2010.

When Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis recently campaigned in Karad South assembly seat, he quipped that Chavan was a politician of international standard and a misfit in the state Vidhan Sabha.

 

To the shock and surprise of even Chavan's critics, the senior leader lost the seat to BJP's Atul Bhosale by nearly 40,000 votes in the state poll results announced on Saturday.

The defeat is a new low for Chavan personally as well as the Congress, which suffered the worst ever-defeat bagging only 16 seats in the 288-member state assembly.

A graduate in mechanical engineering from BITS Pilani and doing his masters from the University of California, Berkeley, Chavan worked in the US aerospace industry as a research engineer for four year before taking up politics full time in 1991.

In India, he founded a company to develop defence electronic equipment and special purpose computers for air defence, missile control, ASW (anti-submarine warfare), aircraft testing equipment and made significant contributions to research in the field of Indian language computing.

His father and Congress leader Dajisaheb Chavan had served in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.

His mother Premla Chavan, popularly known as Premla kaki (aunt), was a three-term Congress MP before her death in 1991.

Prithviraj Chavan started his career in 1991 winning the then Karad seat, which had been held by his parents. He later also won the seat in 1996 and 1998 but lost in 1999.

In 2010, the Congress moved him to Mumbai to replace Ashok Chavan, who had to quit as the CM following a controversy over the Adarsh housing scam.

Prithviraj Chavan became an MLC after taking over as the CM and since 2014, he was MLA from the Karad South seat.

The Coastal Road in Mumbai and the Navi Mumbai international airport were conceptualised by him as chief minister.

However, the Congress leader not having his own group of political supporters had proved to be a negative factor. The NCP withdrew support to his government, leading to imposition of the President's rule in the state.

The two parties later fought the 2014 assembly polls separately.

An honorary visiting professor at BITS Pilani and a member of the council of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Prithviraj Chavan was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 and again in 2008.

In 2004, Prithviraj Chavan served as minister of state in the PMO.

He was member of the Atomic Energy Commission and Space Commission from 2004 to 2010. In 2008, he was given additional charge of the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, and the ministry of parliamentary affairs.

In 2009, he was elevated to the rank of MoS with independent charge of the ministry of science and technology, and the ministry of earth sciences in addition to his earlier responsibilities.