Dinesh Trivedi (born 4 June 1950) is an Indian politician. He was a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha from West Bengal and a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha (2009–2019) representing Barrackpore constituency of West Bengal. Prior to that he was Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha for two separate terms (1990–1996, 2002 to 2008). He is the former Union Minister for Railways and the former Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare under Manmohan Singh's cabinet.
Trivedi was recipient of Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for 2016–2017 period and was felicitated at an event at the central hall of Parliament. He is also the Chairman of the Indo-European Union Parliamentary Forum (IEUPF), and other Parliamentary Forums.
On 12 February 2021, Trivedi resigned from Trinamool Congress and also decided to quit his Rajya Sabha seat. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 6 March 2021.
Early life
Trivedi is the youngest child of the Gujarati couple, Hiralal Trivedi and Urmilaben Trivedi, who migrated to India from Karachi during India's partition, where all his other siblings were born. His parents lived in a number of places before coming to New Delhi, where he was born. His father then started working for the Hindustan Construction Company in Kolkata. Trivedi attended boarding schools in Himachal Pradesh, before graduating in commerce from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He then took a loan of Rs. 20,000 and completed his MBA from The University of Texas at Austin. He also trained to be a pilot, a result of his childhood dream of flying for the Indian Air Force. He is a trained sitar player and enjoys classical music. He also applied to train as an actor at the Film Institute, Pune, but did not follow it up as he then believed it not to be a serious job, as reported by Rediff.com. He was also drawn towards a picture of Swami Vivekananda in an advertisement by the Ramkrishna Mission, and decided to be a monk, but did not do so due to strong advice by his family and a Swami in Chicago. He dons rings with sapphire, emerald and coral on his right hand to ward off the ill-effects of the mangal griha (planet Mars).
Early career
After his MBA in 1974, he worked in Chicago for two years for the Detex Company, before returning to India, where he worked for a logistics provider Lee and Muirhead. In 1984, he quit the job to start his own air freight company based in Kolkata. He also started a consumer protection centre.
Petitioner
Trivedi has filed many petitions. He says, "I was so fed up of corruption then. I thought I can't progress here. But, my father told me to learn to fight corruption, make your way." Trivedi shot into prominence when he asked the Supreme Court to make the Vohra Report on the criminalisation of politics in India public. This petition gave a push to the Right to Information movement.
Career as a politician
Trivedi joined the Congress party in the 1980s, but switched over to the Janata Dal in 1990. Later, in 1998 he joined Mamata Banerjee when she started the Trinamool Congress party and became its first general secretary.
He was a member of the Upper House in the Indian Parliament during years 1990 - 1996 from Gujarat as Janata Dal candidate and during years 2002 - 2008 from West Bengal as AITC candidate. In the 2009 elections he contested for the Trinamool Congress party and won from Barrackpore to join the lower house in the Parliament. He joined the cabinet as the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare in 2009. In 2011, he offered to resign as a minister in support of Anna Hazare. In 2011, after Mamata Banerjee quit as the railway minister to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal, he was elevated as the Cabinet Minister for Railways. In 2019 Lok Sabha Election he contested from Barrackpore Loksabha and lost to Arjun SIngh( Former MLA of Vatpara assembly). After his defeat he was elected to Rajya Sava MP and after few days he quits his relationship with TMCP and joined BJP.