Rajni Patel

Rajni Patel Biography

Rajni Patel was an Indian politician and barrister, based in Mumbai. As a barrister he owned an illustrious career in the 1960s, and is best known for favouring naval officer Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati in K. M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra case of 1959, when the Naval officer killed Prem Ahuja, his wife’s lover. He also owns a political career in association with Indian National Congress and Nehru family, and has remained close to Indira Gandhi during her term as PM since late 1960s. During freedom struggle movement, he has supported Jawaharlal Nehru’s ideologies, and got arrested for Swadeshi movement in his early teens while at school.

Rajni Patel originally belongs to Gujarat, though he was based in Mumbai, during his career as a law maker and politician. He was born in year 1915 in Sarsa of Anand, Gujarat. He plunged into the freedom struggle movement in the early 1930s during his teens and was deeply influenced by Swadeshi Movement of Mahatma Gandhi, and got attracted to Nehru’s ideologies too. For higher studies in law, he moved to Cambridge, and was fully involved in organizing Indian students against British power in India. He did so, under the direct instruction of Nehru. However British came to know about this and got him arrested in the ship itself, and was not allowed to land in Mumbai, on his return to his home country after his studies in the late 1930s.

After this incident, he started his career as a barrister in Mumbai, and was fully engaged with it till his retirement in the mid-1960s. As insisted by Indira Gandhi, he joined Indian National Congress in the late 1970s. He was made the president of the Mumbai Pradesh Congress Committee, and under his wing he brought many reforms in Mumbai city. He passed away in 1982, two years before Indira Gandhi assassination. His wife later published a memoir about him. Ameesha Patel and Ashmit Patel – Bollywood actors are his grandchildren.

Published: March 29, 2020

Updated: March 29, 2020