Ahmed Patel

Patel was born on 21 August 1949 in a Bharuch-based agriculturalist family, as the third child of Mohammed Ishikji Patel and Hawaben Mohammedbhai in the western Indian state of Gujarat.[6] His father was a social worker. He went on to join the Youth Congress, the student's wing of the Indian National Congress.[7]

Patel started his political career by contesting local body elections in the Bharuch District of Gujarat in 1976.[8]

He was selected by the then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in 1977 to contest elections for the Sixth Lok Sabha from Bharuch. He went on to win the elections, and also won subsequent Lok Sabha elections in 1980 and 1984, continuing to represent Bharuch in the Parliament through 1989.[7] In 1985, he went on to become the Parliamentary Secretary to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.[9] In 1987, in his capacity as Member of Parliament, he had helped set up the Narmada Management Authority to monitor the Sardar Sarovar Project.[10][11] He was appointed the secretary of the Jawahar Bhavan Trust in 1988 and is credited with having completed the construction of the Jawahar Bhavan in time for Nehru's birth centenary celebrations.[12]

In 2005, Ahmed Patel was inducted into the Rajya Sabha for his fourth term. Though considered Sonia Gandhi's chief strategist, he chose to keep out of the UPA government in the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha between 2004 and 2014.[13] He maintained a low profile and avoided media and public glare.[14] Patel is only the second Muslim after Ehsan Jafri to be elected as a Lok Sabha MP in Gujarat.[15]

He served as political secretary to Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Indian National Congress. He had served as the parliamentary secretary to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. He had also been appointed as the treasurer of the All India Congress Committee in 2018, replacing senior party member Motilal Vora.[16]

His last election to the Rajya Sabha in 2017, was heavily contested with the Gujarat state legislators being taken away to the southern state of Karnataka in order to prevent dissent, and select defectors being disqualified for revealing their ballots before casting them.[17] This ended up being the first Rajya Sabha election from Gujarat to be contested in decades, while prior candidates had been elected unopposed.[18][19]

Patel was married to Memoona Ahmed Patel in 1976. The couple had a daughter and a son.[23][24] He was known to keep a low profile and rarely interacted with the media.[25]

He died on 25 November 2020, due to multiple organ failure stemming from COVID-19. He had been admitted to the Medanta Hospital and was in the ICU upon being diagnosed with COVID-19.[26] His dead body was taken to his ancestral village in Gujarat, and was buried there. He is survived by his wife, two children and three sisters.