Manikrao Hotlya Gavit, who has been consistently winning from the Nandurbar constituency in the Lok Sobha, on Monday was appointed as minister of state for social justice in the Union Cabinet.
Hailing from the tribal district of Nandurbar of North Maharashtra, Mr Gavit started his political career with the Congress in the late 1970s. Shy and demure by nature, Mr Gavit was a grassroot worker of the party till 1980, when he got his first big break with a ticket to contest the Assembly elections.
Within a period of one year, he got the opportunity to contest in the Lok Sabha elections from the Nandurbar constituency. Since then, Mr Gavit has been winning every Lok Sabha election from the constituency. He has a won a total of nine successive elections in the last 32 years.
As the seniormost member of the Lok Sabha, he was appointed as Protem Speaker of the 15th Lok Sabha by the then President Pratibha Patil. The Protem Speaker performs the duties of the Speaker till the election of a new Speaker.
The low-profile leader was surprisingly made a minister of state for home in 2004. His non-controversial tenure as minister of state suffered a major jolt, when he was accused of links with the mafia. However, the CBI later found out that an impersonator pretending to be Mr Gavit had spoken to a criminal serving in jail. However, in 2008, during the ministerial reshuffle, he was dropped from the Cabinet.
After the demise of former Union minister for science and technology Vilasrao Deshmukh, it was expected that a leader from Maharashtra would be inducted in the Union cabinet. Mr Gavit was among the few leaders, whose name was doing the rounds, for appointment to the post.