19th Governor of Andhra Pradesh

Early Life and Education

Sushilkumar Shinde (born 4 September 1941; Solapur, Maharashtra) is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra, and the current Minister of Home Affairs in the Manmohan Singh government. He is also the Leader of the house in Lok Sabha, the first Dalit to hold that job replacing Pranab Mukherjee.

Shinde was born on 4 September 1941, at Solapur, in the present day Indian state of Maharashtra. Shinde completed his education with an honours degree in Arts from Dayanand College, Solapur; and later in Law from Shivaji University.

Career

Shinde started his career as a bailiff in Solapur session court, where he served from 1957 till 1965. Later, he joined the Maharashtra State Police as a constable, and in time served as Sub-Inspector of Police, Maharashtra State C.I.D. for six years

Political career

Shinde is a leader of the Congress Party. He is the first Scheduled Caste person to have Maharashtra State Assembly elections in 1978, 1980, 1985 and 1990. Shinde 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, Shinde 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, Shinde 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.Shinde became the leader of the house of the Lok Sabha after Pranab Mukherjee was elected President

Power Minister

Shinde served as Power Minister of India from 2006-2012. During the 2012 northern India power grid failure, Shinde deflected criticism by observing that India was not alone in suffering major power outages, as the United States and Brazil had both experienced similar blackouts within the previous few years. Officials in Uttar Pradesh, where the problem was believed to have begun, said the grid could not keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer.

Uttar Pradesh Power Corp. chief Avnish Awasthi blamed the grid collapse on states drawing more than their allotted power to meet the summer demand. Shinde as the power minister, had written a letter dated September 20, 2007, to the PM, Manmohan Singh and argued on behalf of Bhushan Energy Limited (BEL) to allow the coal ministry to "allocate a captive coal block to let the operations begin at the 2,000MW thermal power plant in Angul district". When contacted, Shinde admitted to writing such a letter. "I remember writing to the PM in 2007.

BEL had written to us alleging 'discrimination' in allotment. Following this, I wrote to the PM (asking him) to use his discretion and resolve the matter." "However, when we cross-checked the details of the company and its antecedents, we decided to withdraw the allotment of the captive power block."

These revelations came under scrutiny during the coalgate scam controversy in 2012. At a function in Pune, after becoming the Home Minister, Shinde later remarked that like the Bofors scam even the Coalgate Scam will be forgotten. The comment was criticized by the opposition. Shinde later tried to downplay his statement and stated: "I had gone to attend the felicitation ceremony of a former schoolmate. He did not make anyone laugh so I thought let me add some humour to the function.

Home Minister

Shinde was appointed Home Minister of India in 2012