Rajendra Singh Shekhawat

Shekhawat is the son of Pratibha Patil, the former President of India, and Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat, a former MLA and First Mayor of Amravati.[1] He has a sister.[2]

Shekhawat, who has a son and a daughter, was a car dealer in Mumbai from 1990 until he became a politician.[3] Prior to being elected to the state legislature in 2009, Shekhawat had worked for the Indian National Congress (INC) for a decade. He had been vice-president of the Amravati District Congress Committee and secretary of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, as well as having involvement with the Seva Dal and Youth Congress.[4] He had been looking for an opportunity to be elected since 2004.[3]

Shekhawat won the Amravati Vidhan Sabha seat in the 2009 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections. Standing as a candidate of the INC, he defeated the incumbent, Sunil Deshmukh, by 5614 votes. There were accusations that Shekhawat's family connections had influenced the INC decision to select him as a candidate, which had in turn caused Deshmukh - previously himself an INC representative - to stand as an independent. Shekhawat's mother and father had in the past been elected to represent the town in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, respectively.[5]

Shekhawat again contested the Amravati seat in the 2014 elections, as also did Deshmukh. On this occasion, it was Deshmukh, now standing as a candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party, who emerged as winner.