Eknath Shinde

Eknath Sambhaji Shinde (pronunciation: [eknaːt̪ʰ ʃin̪d̪e]; born 9 February 1964 ) is an Indian politician who is serving as the 20th and current Chief Minister of Maharashtra since 30 June 2022.

He is also serving as the Leader of Shiv Sena since February 2023 and the Leader of the House, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly since July 2022.

Shinde was introduced to politics by then Thane Shivsena President Anand Dighe in early 1980.

Initially, he was leading the Shiv Sena agitation in the Wagle Industrial Estate.

He became one of the prominent labour leader in the region.

After recognition from Dighe, in 1984 he became a Sakha Pramukh in the Thane.

In 1997, he was elected to the Thane Municipal Corporation as a corporator for the first time.

On 2 June 2000, their son Dipesh (aged 11) and daughter Shubhada (aged 7) went boating in a lake near their native village in Maharashtra.

The boat overturned and both the children died by drowning.

Shinde went into a period of depression for several months.

Anand Dighe provided emotional support to Shinde and entrusted him with greater responsibility in order to keep his mind occupied and away from depression.

Shinde became successor to Dighe's legacy after his death in 2001.

Later in 2001 he was elected to the post of the Leader of the House of the Thane Municipal Corporation.

In 2002 he was re-elected to the Thane Municipal Corporation for the second time.

He has been elected as Member of Legislative Assembly since 2004 for four consecutive terms.

Shinde was in favor of breaking the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance and reestablishing an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He requested Uddhav Thackeray to break the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance due to ideological differences and unfair treatment by the Congress Party and NCP.

His fellow Shiv Sena members said that their complaints were ignored by Uddhav Thackeray and Uddhav favored the Congress Party and NCP over his own Shiv Sena members.

Shinde was able to gather 2/3rd of members from his party to support his request.

The crisis began on 21 June 2022 when Shinde and several other MLAs of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition moved to Surat in BJP-governed Gujarat, throwing the coalition into a chaos.

As a result of Shinde's revolt, Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the post of Chief Minister of Maharashtra and said that he will also resign from the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

Shinde successfully reestablished an alliance with the BJP and was sworn in as the 20th Chief Minister, with Bharatiya Janata Party's Devendra Fadnavis as the Deputy Chief Minister.

After Eknath Shinde established the government, he started using the Shiv Sena name and symbols without Uddhav Thackrey's permission.

This created issues as Uddhav Thackeray also claimed to be the leader of Shiv Sena.

Uddhav's faction challenged this in court, which was eventually moved to the Election Commission of India.

The Commission recognized Eknath Shinde's faction as the real Shiv Sena party, which ended the leadership dispute.

He is also the Member of Legislative Assembly for the Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency of Thane, Maharashtra since 2009 and was formerly the MLA of Thane constituency from 2004 to 2009.

Shinde hails from the Dare Village, Jawali taluka in Satara, Maharashtra, and belongs to the Maratha community.

His family moved to Thane (in the Mumbai outskirts).

He studied until 11th standard at Mangala High School & Junior College, Thane.

Shinde left school to support his family, however, he resumed his education in 2014 after joining the government ministry.

Their surviving child, Shrikant Shinde, is an orthopaedic surgeon who has also been the elected Member of Parliament to the Lok Sabha from the Kalyan constituency since 2014 (re-elected in 2019).

Dharmaveer, a 2022 Indian Marathi-language biographical drama film by Pravin Tarde, covered Anand Dighe and Eknath Shinde's life.

The Election Commission also found the changes made to the Shiv Sena party constitution in 2018, under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray, to be undemocratic.

The amendments centralized the party's control and were criticized for not allowing free, fair, and transparent elections for the party positions.

Shinde is married to Lata Shinde.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University in 2020.

Shinde was awarded D.Litt.

(Doctor of Literature) by D. Y. Patil University at the convocation of the university in Navi Mumbai on 28 March 2023, at the hands of Maharashtra governor Ramesh Bais and University chancellor Dr Vijay Patil.

Shinde used to drive an autorickshaw to support his family before entering politics.