Prithviraj Chavan (Marathi pronunciation:  born 17 March 1946) is an Indian politician who was the 17th Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 2010 to 2014. Chavan is a graduate of BITS Pilani and University of California, Berkeley in mechanical engineering. He spent time working in the field of aircraft instrumentation and designing audio recorders for anti-submarine warfare in the US before returning to India and becoming an entrepreneur in 1974. Referred to in the media as a technocrat with a clean, non-controversial image, a low-profile leader. Chavan served as the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions. Chavan was also General Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), in-charge of many states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Haryana, Gujarat, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh.

Chavan was drawn into politics after meeting with Rajiv Gandhi. He has been involved in the Indian National Congress bureaucracy for most of his adult life, notably as a member of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the India’s Parliament) and later architect of the civil nuclear liability bill. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1991 and followed it up in subsequent elections. Chavan held five portfolios in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that includes the ministry of science and technology. He became chief minister of Maharashtra in 2010 at the insistence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi succeeding unrelated Ashok Chavan. He resigned as the chief minister of Maharashtra after the ruling NCP-Congress alliance split in the state.

He contested the 2024 legislative assembly elections from the Karad South constituency but lost by a huge margin to Dr. Atulbaba Suresh Bhosale of the BJP.

Chavan was born in a Maratha family in Indore, Central Provinces on 17 March 1946. His parents were Dajisaheb Chavan and Premala. He is the eldest of three siblings. His younger sisters are Nirupama Ajitrao Yadav-Deshmukh and Vidyulata Venkatrao Ghorpade. Dajisaheb was a member of the Lok Sabha from the Karad constituency from 1957 to 1973 & served as a Minister in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. Upon Dajisaheb’s death in 1973, Chavan’s mother, Premala (affectionately known as Premalakaki, aunt Premala) contested from her late husband’s constituency and was elected in the by election in 1973 and in the general elections of 1977, 1984, and 1989 serving till her death in 1991.

Chavan began his schooling at a local Municipal Marathi-medium school in Karad. After his father moved to Delhi, Chavan joined Nutan Marathi School in Delhi. Chavan graduated in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani. After graduation in 1967, he won a UNESCO scholarship in Germany and later moved to pursue a Master of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote articles on computer science; engineering design; and also contributed to research in computerization. He also worked briefly in the US as a design engineer, working on defence electronics, anti-submarine warfare, computer storage systems, and computerisation of Indian languages.