Kirit Somaiya (born 12 February 1954) is an Indian
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
of the
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
who represented
Mumbai North-East in the
16th Lok Sabha
Members of the 16th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2014 Indian general election. The elections were conducted in 9 phases from 7 April 2014 to 12 May 2014 by the Election Commission of India. The results of the election were declared on 16 M ...
and the
13th Lok Sabha. He is currently appointed as
vice president
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
of
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
's
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
unit.
Early life and education
Somaiya was born and brought up in Mumbai in a middle-class family. He graduated as Chartered accountant from the
Institute of Chartered Accountants of India] (ICAI) in 1979 and also secured a rank in the All India Merit List. He was conferred with a Doctorate from the
University of Mumbai
The University of Mumbai is a collegiate university, collegiate, State university (India), state-owned, Public university, public research university in Mumbai.
The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the un ...
in 2005, with thesis of "Capital Market: Small Investors Protection". He is credited with submitting one of the longest thesis of 1,202 pages which was submitted in 2 volumes.
He married Medha Somaiya and they have one son. His son, Neil, also joined BJP and he is Municipal Councillor from Ward 108 Mulund.
Political career
As a student activist, Somaiya took part in the
Jayprakash Narayan
Jayaprakash Narayan (; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), popularly referred to as JP or ''Lok Nayak'' (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader. He is remembered for le ...
's
Bihar Movement
The JP movement also known as Bihar Movement was a political movement initiated by students in the Indian state of Bihar in 1974 and led by the veteran Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly known as JP, against misrule and corruptio ...
in 1975 when a state of
national emergency
A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
was declared in country. Later on, he joined the BJP and represented the
Mulund Vidhan Sabha Constituency of
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 memb ...
and the
Mumbai North-East Lok Sabha Constituency.
In 1995, Somaiya contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections and got elected from the Mulund assembly where he won by a margin of 43,527 votes. As a M.L.A., he got 2 major Acts passed in the Maharashtra Assembly - Small Investors’ Protection Act of Maharashtra, Repealing Coroners Court (Post Mortem) Act and introduced the Housing Society Conveyance Bill.
In
1999 Lok Sabha election, Somaiya defeated the incumbent
Gurudas Kamat
Gurudas Kamat (5 October 1954 – 22 August 2018) was an Indian politician from the Indian National Congress (INC).
An advocate by profession, Kamat was a commerce graduate from R.A. Podar College, Mumbai and has a law degree from the Governm ...
of the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
by a margin of 7,276 votes. As a parliamentarian, he submitted the maximum number of petitions to the parliament, i.e. 11 (out of 27 total petitions presented in 13th Lok Sabha) during his tenure in Lok Sabha which was the highest number of petitions submitted by any MP in the history of Indian Parliament. He was an active member of the house where during his tenure he raised a total of 832 questions in the house on several issues.
On 27 February 2014, the BJP announced its first list of candidates for the
2014 Lok Sabha Elections and Somaiya was fielded as the BJP candidate from Mumbai North East. He defeated the incumbent
Sanjay Dina Patil
Sanjay Dina Patil (born 16 January 1969) is an Indian politician from Mumbai. He was elected to Maharashtra State assembly in 2004 from Bhandup. In 2009, he was elected to 15th Lok Sabha from Mumbai North East constituency in Maharashtra stat ...
of the
Sharad Pawar
Sharad Govindrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: əɾəd̪ pəʋaːɾ born 12 December 1940) is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on four occasions. He has held the posts of Minister of Defence and Mini ...
led
Nationalist Congress Party
The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party in ...
by a large margin of 317,122 votes.
Positions held
*
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
,
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...
*
National Secretary –
BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
*
MLA -
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 memb ...
*
Vice President
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...
–
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
*
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
–
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
* All India Convenor -
BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...
Investors Cell
*
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
–
Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha
The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) (translation: Indian People's Youth Front) is the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of the two major political parties in India. It was founded in 1978, and its first national president w ...
,
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
Social and political contributions
As the National convener of the ''Anti-Corruption – Scam Expose Committee'' of the BJP, Somaiya ran a Nationwide campaign against corruption of the ruling UPA Government and its allies where he travelled through 16 states and 100 districts exposing several scams. He has, however, been characteristically silent on scams and corruption within his own party like the
Yeddyurappa scandal.
Often, Somaiya in his exposes has taken on several Ministers and Senior Politicians for charges of corruption and also filed
Public Interest Litigations
Public interest law refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor, marginalized, or under-represented people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest, on 'not for profit' terms ( ''pro bono publico''), often in the fields ...
(PIL) in an attempt to bring justice.
Some of the scams Somaiya has exposed /pursued include the
NSEL case
NSEL case relates to a payment default at the National Spot Exchange Limited that occurred in 2013 involving Financial Technologies India Ltd, when a payment default took place after a commodities market regulator, the Forward Markets Commis ...
,
Coal mining scam
The Coal allocation scam, dubbed in media as Coalgate, is a major political scandal concerning the Indian government's allocation of the nation's coal deposits to public sector enterprise (PSEs) and private companies. In a draft report issued i ...
, Maharashtra Sadan Scam,
Adarsh Scam
The Adarsh Housing Society is a 31-story building constructed on prime real estate in Colaba, Mumbai, for the welfare of war widows and personnel of India's Ministry of Defence. Over a period of several years, politicians, bureaucrats and mili ...
, Wheat Scam,
DMAT scam, and
Maharashtra Irrigation Scam
The Maharashtra Irrigation Scam was an alleged government scam which involved financial irregularities of in the Indian state of Maharashtra during 1999–2009. The allegations of corruption were made after a 2012 Economic Survey stated that the ...
.
As a People's Activist, Somaiya has made several contributions, both Social and political in nature. He founded the NGO ''"Yuvak Pratishthan"'' which has been active for over 3 decades in taking up several initiatives such as Slum Rehabilitation, Cheap and Accessible Healthcare for all, Promotion of Education and Sports.
Some of his Notable Social Contributions:
* Hepatitis B Free Mumbai where more than 32 Lakhs vaccines were provided at a subsidized rate (Setting a record in Limca Book of Records)
* ‘Cataract Free Mumbai’ Campaign where over 400 camps were held all over Mumbai
* Rail Pravasi Suraksha Abhiyaan – Submitted a petition to the Parliament which was co-signed by 50,000 railway passengers of Mumbai to address the safety issues at Mumbai's railway stations
* founded the Investors’ Grievances Forum (IGF) in 1994, an NGO with a social objective dedicated to the protection and safeguarding of the rights of investors through education, awareness, guidance, mass campaigns and representations to regulators, government authorities and courts.
References
External links
*
Biographical Sketch: Member of Parliament: 13th Lok Sabha
{{DEFAULTSORT:Somaiya, Kirit
1954 births
Living people
Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Maharashtra
India MPs 1999–2004
Lok Sabha members from Maharashtra
India MPs 2014–2019