A businessman-turned-politician, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah is also referred to as the 'Chanakya' of modern Indian politics. During the regime of PM Modi, no other politician has been considered taller than Shah after the PM himself. In the 2019 general elections, Amit Shah contested and won from the Gandhinagar constituency of Gujarat in the Lok Sabha elections 2019, the seat that BJP veteran L K Advani held for a long time.
Shah has had a meteoric rise in national politics. In mid-2010, he spent time in jail in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Four years later. Shah was the BJP chief. He debuted in the Rajya Sabha by 2017, and BJP MPs were soon turning to him for advice on the party’s floor strategy instead of Leader of the House Arun Jaitley. Shah is now a Lok Sabha member and thought of as the natural successor to Mr. Modi post-2025.
Since 1989, Amit Shah has fought 29 elections, including various local body polls, and not lost any to this day. Shah was elected as an MLA from Gujarat’s Sarkhej in four consecutive elections — 1997 (by-election), 1998, 2002 and 2007.
At one time, he held 12 portfolios — home, law and justice, prison, border security, civil defence, excise, transport, prohibition, home guards, gram rakshak dal, police housing, and legislative and parliamentary affairs.
Shah has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since childhood. He first met Narendra Modi in 1982 through Ahmedabad RSS circles. During Narendra Modi's 12-year tenure as the Gujarat CM, Shah emerged as one of the most powerful leaders in the state. After winning the 2002 elections, he became the youngest minister in the Modi government, and was given multiple portfolios.
Known as a master strategist, Shah, along with Modi, has assured BJP victories in several state elections since the BJP’s landslide Lok Sabha elections win in 2014.
Under his leadership, the BJP achieved success in Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam in 2016, but lost the elections in Delhi, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. He led the party towards a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and marked the party's strong debut in Manipur, but the Akali-BJP alliance lost power in Punjab.
Shah was born in 1964 to a wealthy Nagar-Vaishnav family of Gujarat. His grandfather relocated the family to their ancestral home in Gujarat’s Mansa from Mumbai. Shah’s great-grandfather and grandfather were nagarsheth of the princely state of Mansa.
Shah started his political work as a 13-year-old in 1977 when he stuck posters for Janata Party candidates from Mehsana, Maniben Patel, the daughter of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Later, he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.