Manohar Parrikar Biography

Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar, also known as Manohar Parrikar is the current Defence Minister of India. Born on 13 December 1955, Parrikar was sworn in as Chief Minister of Goa on 9 March 2012 and is the first Chief Minister of the state from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Parrikar completed his secondary education in Marathi and went on to gain a degree in metallurgical engineering from the prestigious IIT Bombay (Mumbai) and is the first IIT graduate to become Chief Minister of any state in India. He was also awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2001 by IIT Bombay.

Parrikar was elected to the Second Legislative Assembly of the state of Goa in 1994 and was leader of opposition from June to November 1999. He was also elected as Chief Minister of Goa for the first time on 24 October 2000, but was only in office till 27 February 2002. On 5 June 2002, he was re-elected and became Chief Minister again.

In January 2005, his government was reduced to a minority in the assembly after four BJP MLA’s resigned. Parrikar proved his majority in the house again in February 2005. In 2007, Parrikar was defeated in the Goa State Election by the Indian National Congress Party (INC) led by Digambar Kamat. Finally, Parrikar was victorious again after BJP won 24 seats against INC’s 9 seats in the Goa Assemble Elections in March 2012.

In 2014, Parrikar joined the central government after being persuaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In November same year, he replaced Arun Jaitley and became the Defence Minister of the country.