AMIT SHAH | 54. Born: Oct 22, 1964
Experience: 1 Rajya Sabha Term
Marking a shift in the top four ministries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chose close aide Amit Shah as the Home Minister.
From a polling booth in-charge to heading the world’s largest political party to cabinet minister, the journey of BJP president Amit Anilchandra Shah has been stupendous to say the least.
For 14 years in Gujarat, Shah was the most trusted lieutenant of then CM Narendra Modi. His career suffered a brief setback in 2010, when he, as the MoS home of Gujarat, was arrested in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati encounter cases. He was granted bail on the condition that he would stay away from Gujarat. But Shah used his time in Delhi to not just sort out his legal problems but also understand the nitty-gritty of national politics. After two years away, he was allowed to return in 2012. He was subsequently discharged of all charges. Perhaps the most crucial phase of Shah’s career began in 2013, when he was made general secretary of the BJP and was tapped to spearhead the 2014 general election campaign in Uttar Pradesh. Realising the importance of UP, Shah spent almost an entire year there, working on the minutest of details, which eventually gave the party and its allies 73 of the 80 LS seats in UP.
Immediately after the 2014 LS polls, Shah was elevated to BJP president. In the first year of his tenure, the BJP won four of the five assembly elections held. Since then, with Modi at the helm of government and Amit Shah captaining the organisation that he transformed into a well-oiled electoral machine, the BJP has expanded its footprint across the country.
Incidentally, Shah honed his political skills in his home state Gujarat, where he started as a booth manager in the Gandhinagar constituency – the seat which he won this year with a record margin of 5.57 lakh votes. When he’s not busy with politics, Shah likes playing chess and watching theatre. He also likes to learn new languages. His family continues to live in their house in Ahmedabad. Whenever he comes home, it’s his granddaughter Rudri who takes up most of his time
