Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan (12 March 1913 - 25 November 1984)

Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan (12 March 1913 - 25 November 1984) was the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra after the division of Bombay State, and subsequently Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was Chief Minister of Maharashtra from May 1, 1960 to November 19, 1962. Yashwantrao Chavan was born in the village of Devrashtre in Karad Taluka of Satara District of Maharashtra State of India. Apart from being the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra, he occupied the high positions of Defence Minister, Home Minister, Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister of India. Yashwantrao Chavan was commonly known as Chavan saheb. While he later championed the view associated with the term Sanyukta Maharashtra, under the influence of Jawaharlal Nehru he almost accepted a bilingual state of Maharashtra[citation needed]. He had planned to write his autobiography in three parts. First part covering his early years in Satara district. His native place is situated on the banks of Krishna River and therefore the name of the first part was "Krishna Kath" (The bank of the Krishna River). In the middle phase of his political development he was the Chief Minister of bilingual Bombay state and later from 1 st May 1960, the newly formed Maharashtra state. All these years were spent in Mumbai so the proposed name for the second volume was "Sagar Tir". Later in 1962 he was appointed Defence Minister of India by Nehru. From then onwards he was in Delhi until his death in 1984; so he had proposed the name "Yamuna Kath" for his third volume. He was able to complete and publish only the first volume. He was a capable orator and writer. He strongly advocated socialist democracy and was instrumental in establishing co-operatives in Maharashtra for the betterment of the farmers. In 1989, an open university named 'Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University' was established in Maharashtra after his name.