Five Decades in Politics

Veteran politician Sushilkumar Shinde''s career trajectory is unrivalled in Indian politics. Beginning life working as a child labourer and as a ward boy to make ends meet, he went on to hold some of the highest offices in the land: the chief minister of Maharashtra, the Union home minister, All India Congress Committee general secretary and the UPA''s vice-presidential candidate. In this candid memoir written with Rasheed Kidwai, he takes us though the highs and lows of his fifty-year-long political journey: from being ''discovered'' by Sharad Pawar and fighting his first few elections to his subsequent rise to the pinnacles of power.