In October 2019, actor Riteish Deshmukh posted on X, “We did it papa”. The jubilatory post was in recognition of the electoral victories of his two brothers, older brother Amit and their youngest sibling Dhiraj. With his win in 2019, Dhiraj became the fourth Deshmukh to enter the Maharashtra legislature. His father Vilasrao Deshmukh rose from being the sarpanch of an earlier obscure village of Babhalgaon to becoming a two-time chief minister of Maharashtra and a union minister. His uncle Diliprao followed his older brother into politics and served as a minister in the state. Vilasrao’s older son Amit is a two-time member of the Maharashtra legislative assembly and a former minister. Over the past four decades, the Deshmukh clan had wielded considerable clout in the state’s power circles with an almost iron-like grip over the politics of Latur.
Seen as a shrewd political craftsman, but, with a warm and pleasant demeanour, Vilasrao’s career has seen sharp highs and lows especially when he to step down from the chief minister’s position following a controversy and also faced corruption charges in the Adarsh building case. But his rise has also been meteoric. An alumnus of Pune’s ILS college, Vilasrao dabbled in the local politics of Babhalgaon and Latur before entering the Maharashtra state legislature in 1980 and becoming a minister, two years later. It is said that he tried to topple Sharad Pawar’s government in the state a few times but was unsuccessful. As a minister until 1995 and then as the chief minister in 1999, Vilasrao handled varied portfolios from industries, agriculture and cooperatives to the sensitive home department. While he wasn’t new to controversies, the biggest blow came in 2008 when he was stripped off the CM’s seat because of the public uproar following his visit to the terror-stricken sites along with filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma.
While the controversies continued, Vilasrao was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the Congress and was made a minister at the centre. Ill health plagued him even as he attended the glitzy weddings of his sons, Riteish and Dhiraj who married actress Genelia Deshmukh and filmmaker Deepshikha Bhagnani respectively. Over his career, Vilasrao also established educational institutes and a sugar factory. He passed away in August 2012 in Chennai after a liver failure.
His older son Amit who was, for long, viewed as his political heir, made his debut in the state legislature in 2014 while he was the district president of the Congress in Latur. The year also marked his younger brother Dhiraj’s debut in state politics from the Latur Rural constituency, re-establishing the Deshmukh clan’s goodwill in Latur.
Comments