Shivraj Patil

Shivraj Vishwanath Patil
Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh, Governor of Rajasthan
Incumbent
Assumed office Jan 22, 2010
Preceded by	Sunith Francis Rodrigues
Minister for Home Affairs
In office 22 May 2004 – 30 November 2008[1]
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Lal Krishna Advani
Succeeded by	P. Chidambaram
Speaker of Lok Sabha
In office 10 July 1991 – 22 May 1996
Preceded by	Rabi Ray
Succeeded by	P.A. Sangma
Minister of Defence
In office 15 January 1980 – 2 December 1989
Prime Minister	Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi
Preceded by	Pranab Mukherjee
Succeeded by	Shankarrao Chavan
Personal details
Born	October 12, 1935 (1935-10-12) (age 76) Latur, Maharashtra, India
Political party	Indian National Congress
Occupation	Politician

Shivraj Vishwanath Patil (born October 12, 1935) is an Indian politician and current state Punjab governor and the Administrator of Union Territory of Chandigarh.^[2] Previously, he had been the Speaker of the 11th Lok Sabha and served the Manmohan Singh cabinet as the Union Minister of Home Affairs. He also served the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi cabinets as the defence minister during the 1980s. He resigned from the post of Home-Minister on November 30, 2008, following widespread criticism raised after terrorist attacks on Mumbai. He resigned taking the moral responsibility for the attacks.^[3]

Early life

Patil was born in 1935 in the village of Chakur in the Latur district (Marathwada region) of Maharashtra, India. He attended Osmania University, Hyderabad, earning a degree in Science and studied Law at Bombay University. During 1967–69, he was involved in local government (Latur Municipality).

Patil belongs to the Lingayat community.^[4] He married Vijaya Patil in June 1963.^[5]

In state politics

From 1972 to 1980, he was member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for two terms of 1972–1978 and 1978 to 1980 during which time he held various positions such as Chairman of Public Undertakings Committee, Deputy Minister (Law & Judiciary, Irrigation, Protocol), Deputy Speaker of the Assembly and Speaker of the Assembly.

In central politics

In 1980, he was elected to the 7th Lok Sabha. By 1999 (13th Lok Sabha), he had won seven successive Lok Sabha elections in 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999

In government

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2009)

First inducted in the Indira Gandhi-led government in as Minister of State for Defence (1980–82), he was given independent charge of the Commerce Ministry (1982–83), from where he was shifted to Science and Technology, Atomic Energy, Electronics, Space and Ocean Development (1983–84).

During 1983–86, he was Vice President of CSIR India. He also served on various committees including those on Defence, External Affairs, Finance, Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament.

In the Rajiv Gandhi government, he was Minister for Personnel, Defence production and later held independent charge of Civil Aviation and Tourism.

He has also held a number of important positions in the party ever since Sonia Gandhi took over the presidency of the party. He is largely known for introducing the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award, India in 1995. He was the chairman of the manifesto committee of the party during the 1999 Lok Sabha election.

As speaker of the Lok Sabha, he had begun or contributed in initiatives on information dissemination to members of the Parliament (through computerisation and modernisation), construction of Parliament Library Building and broadcast of Loksabha proceedings, including live broadcast of Question Hour of both houses of the parliament.

Between 1991–1995, he was a member/leader of Indian parliamentary delegations to various international parliamentary conferences.

He became Home Minister in 2004. A former Lok Sabha speaker, Shivraj Patil lost in the 2004 polls from Latur constituency in Maharashtra, but has still landed up the second most important position in the Union Cabinet—that of the Home Minister. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in July 2004. Widely seen as an ineffective minister, his tenure as home minister was marred by one debacle after another and he faced increasing calls for his resignation, which he was eventually forced to due to the mishandling in the events leading up to and after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

United States Ambassador David Mulford in an embassy cable had described his removal after Mumbai terrorists attack as inevitable and called him "inept" and "asleep on the watch".^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

Patil is accused for not sending the Central Reserve Police Force to Nandigram, even after repeated requests by the West Bengal government, to restore order in the area and the events resulted in police firing.

Patil's name was considered a likely candidate in 2007 presidential election. However, after the Left opposed his candidacy, Sonia Gandhi proposed Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan, as the presidential candidate. Shivraj Patil was later considered a possible candidate for the post of Vice President of India. His extensive parliamentary experience and his reputation for fairness were said to be the main advantages on his side.

Patil was seen in three different sets of clothes on the night of the 13 September 2008 Delhi bombings in which 30 people were killed. He was accused of paying more attention to his clothes than the blasts.^[11]

On 30 November 2008, just two months after Delhi blasts, Patil resigned from his position of Home Minister in Union Cabinet taking moral responsibility of the security lapse that lead to the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

References

v d e Current Governors of Indian states (list)     Andhra Pradesh: E. S. L. Narasimhan Arunachal Pradesh: Joginder Jaswant Singh Assam: Janaki Ballabh Patnaik Bihar: Devanand Konwar Chhattisgarh: Shekhar Dutt Goa: Shivinder Singh Sidhu Gujarat: Kamla Beniwal Haryana: Jagannath Pahadia Himachal Pradesh: Urmila Singh Jammu and Kashmir: Narinder Nath Vohra Jharkhand: Syed Ahmed Karnataka: Hansraj Bhardwaj Kerala: M. O. Hasan Farook Maricar Madhya Pradesh: Rameshwar Thakur Maharashtra: K. Sankaranarayanan Manipur: Gurbachan Jagat Meghalaya: Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary Mizoram: Vakkom Purushothaman Nagaland: Nikhil Kumar Orissa: Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare Punjab: Shivraj Patil Rajasthan: Shivraj Patil Sikkim: Balmiki Prasad Singh Tamil Nadu: K. Rosaiah Tripura: Dnyandeo Yashwantrao Patil Uttar Pradesh: Banwari Lal Joshi Uttarakhand: Margaret Alva West Bengal: M. K. Narayanan ANI: Bhopinder Singh Chandigarh: Shivraj Patil Delhi: Tejendra Khanna Pondicherry: Iqbal Singh

bn:শিবরাজ পাটিল

fr:Shivraj Patil hi:शिवराज पाटिल ml:ശിവരാജ് പാട്ടീൽ mr:शिवराज पाटील pl:Shivraj Patil sv:Shivraj Patil ta:சிவ்ராஜ் பாட்டீல்