Ganpatrao Deshmukh (10 August 1927 – 30 July 2021) was an Indian politician. He was in office for 54 years. He was called "Abasaheb" by the people with love and affection. He was also called "Bhai" by peasants and workers.

Biography

He was the leader of Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP). He is the longest serving member of the

Maharashtra Legislative Assembly The Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha or the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the legislature of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is situated in the Nariman Point area of South Mumbai in the capital Mumbai. Presently, 288 me ...

have been elected 11 times, during the last 54 years, from

Sangola Sangole or (Sangola) is a city with a municipal council in Solapur district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is situated near Holy city Pandharpur . It is located at the intersection of state highways SH-161, SH-3, and SH-71. Traditional ...

Solapur district Solapur District (Marathi pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, olaːpuːɾ is a List of districts of Maharashtra, district in Maharashtra state of India. The city of Solapur is the district headquarters. It is located on the south east edge of th ...

. Deshmukh also briefly served as a minister in the First Sharad Pawar ministry in 1978, and later in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

, when PWP supported the Congress-NCP alliance. Deshmukh was first elected to the State Assembly in the 1962 elections, and since then won every election, except for the

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

and

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

elections. In 2012, the government and the Assembly congratulated him upon his completing 50 years as a member. In the 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election at the age of eighty-eight, he won the

constituency for a record 11th time with 94,374 votes.

References

1927 births 2021 deaths Peasants and Workers Party of India politicians Leaders of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly People from Solapur district Maharashtra MLAs 1962–1967 Maharashtra MLAs 1967–1972 Maharashtra MLAs 1978–1980 Maharashtra MLAs 1985–1990 Maharashtra MLAs 1990–1995 Maharashtra MLAs 1999–2004 Maharashtra MLAs 2004–2009 Maharashtra MLAs 2009–2014 State cabinet ministers of Maharashtra {{Maharashtra-politician-stub