New Delhi: Today (Saturday) is the birthday of former BJP National President and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Amit Shah was born on this day in 1964 in the house of a businessman in Mumbai. His family was a Gujarati Hindu Vaishnav Bania. His mother's name is Kusumben and his father's name is Anilchandra Shah. After his initial studies in Mehsana, he went to Ahmedabad. From there he studied BSc in Biochemistry. After that Amit Shah started handling the family business of plastic pipes. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at an early age. Amit Shah met Narendra Modi during his college days in 1982, after which he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, in 1983, and his political inclination started from his student days.

Varun Gandhi again targets his own govt, said this about youth

Amit Shah joined the BJP as a politician in 1987 and the party made him a member of the Yuva Morcha. Shah got his first big political opportunity in 1991. He was assigned the task of campaigning for veteran BJP leader LK Advani in the Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency. In the year 1996, Atal Bihari Vajpayee contested from Gujarat, at that time also Amit Shah took over the task of campaigning for him. Amit Shah, a stockbroker by profession, had won the by-election in the Sarkheja assembly seat of Gujarat in 1997. In 1999, Amit Shah was elected the chairman of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank. He was also the Vice President of the Gujarat Cricket Association in 2009. From 2003 to 2010, Amit Shah also held the responsibility of the Home Ministry in the cabinet of the Gujarat Government. 

'Yamuna should not be polluted during Chhath Puja', Kejriwal orders officials

Shah was also 4 time MLA from the Sarkhej seat of Gujarat. He is considered close to PM Narendra Modi. Shah came into the limelight when Ishrat Jahan, Zeeshan Johar, Amjad Ali Rana and Pranesh were killed in an alleged fake encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004. The Gujarat Police claimed that these people had come to kill Narendra Modi to avenge the post-Godhra riots in 2002. In this case, Gopinath Pillai had submitted an application in the court urging Amit Shah to be made an accused. However, on 15 May 2014, the special CBI court dismissed the petition against Amit Shah due to insufficient evidence. 

About 10 months before the 16th Lok Sabha elections, Shah was appointed in charge of Uttar Pradesh by the BJP. At that time the BJP had only 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state. On the strength of his organizational skills and leadership ability, the party registered a landslide victory in 71 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha. This was BJP's biggest victory in UP so far. After this victory, Shah's stature within the party increased and he was appointed president. Seeing the efficient political skills of Amit Shah, he came to be called the Chanakya of politics. In the second term of the Modi government, Amit Shah has been entrusted with the responsibility of the Union Home Minister. As soon as he took over as Home Minister, he made his intentions clear by removing Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. After this, Shah also ended the militancy growing in the North-East states in a very diplomatic way. 

'Sar Tan Se Juda..,' This BJP leader receives death threat from radicals

'Why do you take that man's name,' after all, on whom CM Nitish got angry?

Tribal dance festival to begin in Chhattisgarh from Nov 1, artists from 9 countries to join