Sushilkumar retires, daughter set to contest Lok Sabha elections

Former Union home minister and Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday announced his retirement from electoral politics ahead of the 2024 national elections, declaring that his daughter Praniti Shinde would contest the Lok Sabha elections instead.

“I am publicly saying that Praniti will contest for Lok Sabha elections (from Solapur Lok Sabha constituency). I am more like a retired person and trying to help wherever required,” said the 83-year-old veteran politician, who joined politics in the early seventies.

His daughter Praniti Shinde, 42, is a three-time legislator from Solapur city central assembly seat.

Shinde had planned to make way for his daughter after the 2014 elections and told voters during the campaigning that it was his last election. He lost the Solapur seat in 2014 and decided to give it another shot in 2019. He lost the seat again in a triangular fight to Jaisidhesvar Swami of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Shinde, a three-term MP from Solapur, was Maharashtra chief minister for a brief period during January 2003 and November 2004. He was appointed as Andhra Pradesh governor as soon as he stepped down and continued in the post till 2006, when he was inducted into the Union cabinet.

He was the country’s power minister in the Manmohan Singh government and was later assigned the home ministry in 2012 after P Chidambaram, who was brought in as home minister in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, moved back to the finance ministry.