Overview
Dr. Sunil Panjabrao Deshmukh (born 28 May 1958) is an Indian politician and a Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly representing the Amravati constituency. He is a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) and has been elected to the Assembly from Amravati on three occasions.
Deshmukh served as the Minister of State for Finance and Planning, Public Works and Energy in the Government of Maharashtra. From October 2004 to December 2008, in the cabinet led by then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he additionally held the portfolios of Water Resources, Command Area Development and Parliamentary Affairs. He was the guardian minister for Amravati and Bhandara districts in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra from 2004 to 2009.
In other public roles, Deshmukh served as the ex-officio Vice-Chairman of the holding company of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board and as co-chairman of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation Ltd. from 1999 to 2004.
In his electoral contests from Amravati, he defeated Jagdish Motilal Gupta of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on his first two outings, by margins of approximately 10,000 and 32,000 votes respectively. On the third occasion, he defeated Raosaheb Shekhawat of the Indian National Congress by a margin of 35,072 votes. In 2009, he left the Congress and formed the Janvikas Congress Party, briefly associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party, and subsequently returned to the Indian National Congress.
Before entering public life, Deshmukh practised as a radiologist. He completed his MBBS from the Government Medical College, Nagpur in 1981, and went on to obtain his M.D. in Radiology from the same institution in 1986.