In Pics: How Eknath Shinde rose from an auto rickshaw driver to Maharashtra Chief Minister

Shinde is known to be a hardworking man who worked at several odd jobs before stepping foot into politics in the 1980s. The 58-year-old politician worked at a beer brewery in Thane and even drove an autorickshaw to earn his daily bread. Later, he was influenced by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and the party’s Thane district chief Anand Dighe.

At that time, Dighe ran the local unit of Thane. He served an important role in making Shiv Sena a dominant force in the area. Shinde looked up to Dighe, who had then mentored various other politicians in Thane. He soon modelled his appearance after the Thane district Sena president, who later helped him to win a seat in the Thane Municipal Corporation in 1997.

Shinde witnessed a life-altering tragedy on June 2, 2000. Two out of his three children had died after drowning while boating. The incident occurred when his 11-year-old son Deepesh and his 7-year-old daughter Shubhda visited Satara. His third child Srikant was 14 years old at that time.

The death of his children led the Shiv Sena corporator into shock. He then decided to stay away from politics. Shinde’s political mentor Dighe came ahead to uplift his spirits and gave him more responsibility to bring him back into active politics.

Shinde was elected consecutively for four terms in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019.

He was elected as Shiv Sena’s leader after winning the 2014 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. He was also chosen as the opposition leader in the state assembly and then served as the minister of urban development and public work.

The new CM of Maharashtra has the loyalty of many party MLAs and is quite popular for being a humble politician among not just Hindus but Muslims as well. The man is known to have a firm grip over Thane and is currently the MLA from the Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency of the city.