Pune
Prithviraj Chavan continues family legacy
pune: prithviraj chavan, who is among the seven persons elected unopposed from maharashtra to the upper house of parliament on monday, enjoys a unique family tradition in the history of parliament. he is the third member of his family to have found a berth in parliament uninterruptedly for over four decades, barring the last two-and-a-half years, a distinction probably surpassed only by the gandhi-nehru family. although this will be chavan's first term as a member of the elders' house, he has been elected to the lok sabha from the karad constituency in satara district for three consecutive terms since 1991. his father, former union deputy minister for defence and law dajisaheb chavan was an mp for 16 years and later, prithiviraj's mother, premalabai chavan, was also an mp for 17 years. dajisaheb was first elected to the bombay state assembly on a peasants and workers party in 1954. he was elected from the karad parliamentary constituency in 1957, defeating veteran congress leader swami ramanand bharati. he was later re-elected to the lok sabha on congress tickets from karad in 1962, 1967 and 1971 and was a deputy union minister from 1962 until his death in 1973. after dajisaheb's death, his wife premalabai was elected unopposed to the lok sabha in a by-poll in 1973. she was re-elected from the karad constituency for the next three terms. after the post-emergency split in the congress, when many party veterans in the state aligned with the congress led by devraj urs, premalabai chose to side with indira gandhi and also served as the congress(i) state president at that time. when indira came back to power with a resounding victory, she awarded premalabai with a rajya sabha seat in 1981. she was re-elected to the lok sabha from karad in 1989. premalabai, fondly referred to as kaki, retired from politics in 1991 when rajiv gandhi asked her son prithviraj, a us-trained engineer, to continue the family's political legacy in parliament. prithviraj, who was re-elected to lok sabha in 1996 and 1998, tasted defeat in 1999 when the nationalist congress party swept both the assembly and parliamentary polls in satara district. incidentally, this was also the first time since 1957 that a congress candidate was defeated in karad constituency. since creation of the karad parliamentary constituency in 1957, till 1999, this congress bastion has always been represented by the chavan clan, except from 1980-84 when co-operative leader yashwantrao mohite represented the constituency and premalabai was a rajya sabha member during that period. during his decade-long career as a parliamentarian, 56-year-old prithviraj chavan has served as the congress parliamentary party's deputy whip, party general secretary and also as spokesperson.
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