Kazi Lhendup Dorjee

Lhendup Dorjee was born in 1904 in Pakyong, East Sikkim, Sikkim. He was born into the Khangsarpa family, who were Sikkimese nobility Dorji Khangsarpa entered the Rumtek monastery at the age of 6 years. His uncle, Tshurfuk Lama Rabden Dorji was the then Head Lama of the monastery and Dorjee became his disciple. Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal, then Maharaja of Sikkim, while visiting the monastery took a great liking to the hong monk and took him to Gangtok, where he placed him in a Tibetan School. At the age of 16, Dorjee returned to Rumtek monastery and under strict training for priesthood for two years. Thereafter on completion of his training he succeeded as the Head Lama of Rumtek monastery and its estates on the retirement of Lama Ugen Tenzing. Dorjee remained as the Head Lama in Rumtek monastery for eight years and then left the monastery to work with his brother the late Kazi Phag Tshering, who founded the Young Men Buddhist Association at Darjeeling. The two brothers founded a large number of schools in West Sikkim and were instrumental in bringing about a number of social and other reforms. ==Political career==

Dorjee founded the Sikkim Praja Mandal in 1945 and served as its first president. The Sikkim National Congress merged with India's Congress Party in the 1970s following Sikkim's annexation by India. Dorjee also formed the Sikkim Council to promote "communal harmony." Dorjee was considered to be a key figure in the 1975 union of Sikkim with India. Dorjee served as the first Chief Minister of Sikkim from 1975, the year before the official merger, until 1979. Dorjee was honoured by the government of India with the Padma Vibhushan in 2002. He was also awarded the Sikkim Ratna by the state government of Sikkim in 2004. ==Kazini Elisa Maria==

Dorjee's wife, Kazini Elisa Maria, formerly Elisa-Maria Langford-Rae, was a Belgian aristocrat and divorcee. She was of Scottish extraction and had studied law at Edinburgh University. She converted to Buddhism and took Sangharakshita as her teacher. In the 1920s she had been in Burma where for a while she was unsuccessfully pursued by the author George Orwell. Her birth name may have been Ethel Maud Shirran, according to her granddaughter. ==Death==

Dorjee died of a heart attack on 28 July 2007 at his home in Kalimpong, in the Indian state of West Bengal. == Electoral record ==

; Sikkim Legislative Assembly election ==References==