Somaiya was born and brought up in Mumbai in a middle – class family. He married Medha Somaiya and they have one son. Somaiya's son Neil has also joined BJP and he is Municipal Councillor from Ward 108 Mulund. He graduated as Chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartererd Accountants of India in 1979 and also secured a rank in the All India Merit List. He was conferred with a Doctorate from the Mumbai University in 2005 – "Ph.D in Finance – Capital Market – Small Investors Protection." He is credited with submitting one of the longest thesis of 1,202 pages which was submitted in 2 volumes.
Early political career
Somaiya was motivated by his mother during his childhood to serve the country and he decided to enter into politics and concentrate on finance and economic issues at a young age. As a student activist, Kirit took part in the Jayaprakash Narayan movement in 1975 when a State of National Emergency was declared in country. Later on, he joined the BJP and represented the Mulund Constituency of Maharashtra Assembly and the Mumbai North-East Lok Sabha Constituency. In 1995, Somaiya contested the Maharashtra Assembly elections and got elected from the Mulund assembly where he won by a margin of 43,527 votes. As a M.L.A., he got 2 major Acts passed in the Maharashtra Assembly - Small Investors’ Protection Act of Maharashtra, Repealing Coroners Court Act and introduced the Housing Society Conveyance Bill.
In 1999 Lok Sabha election, Somaiya defeated the incumbent Gurudas Kamat of the Indian National Congress by a margin of 7,276 votes. As a parliamentarian, he submitted the maximum number of petitions to the parliament, i.e. 11 during his tenure in Lok Sabha which was the highest number of petitions submitted by any MP in the history of Indian Parliament. He was an extremely active member of the house where during his tenure he raised a total of 832 questions in the house on several issues. In 2014 Lok Sabha election, Somaiya defeated Sanjay Dina Patil of the Nationalist Congress Party by a large margin of 317,122 votes.
As the National Convenor of the Anti-Corruption – Scam Expose Committee of the BJP, Somaiya ran a Nationwide campaign against corruption of the ruling UPA Government and its allies where he travelled through 16 states and 100 districts exposing several scams. He has, however, been characteristically silent on scams and corruption within his own party like the Yeddyurappa scandal. Often, Somaiya in his exposes has taken on several Ministers and Senior Politicians for charges of corruption and also filed Public Interest Litigations in an attempt to bring justice. List of the scams Somaiya has exposed /pursued
As a People’s Activist, Somaiya has made several contributions, both Social and political in nature. He founded the NGO "Yuvak Pratishthan" which has been active for over 3 decades in taking up several initiatives such as Slum Rehabilitation, Cheap and Accessible Healthcare for all, Promotion of Education and Sports. Some of his Notable Social Contributions
Hepatitis B Free Mumbai where more than 32 Lakhs vaccines were provided at a subsidized rate
‘Cataract Free Mumbai’ Campaign where over 400 camps were held all over Mumbai
Rail Pravasi Suraksha Abhiyaan – Submitted a petition to the Parliament which was co-signed by 50,000 railway passengers of Mumbai to address the safety issues at Mumbai’s railway stations
Somaiya also founded the Investors’ Grievances Forum in 1994, an NGO with a social objective dedicated to the protection and safeguarding of the rights of investors through education, awareness, guidance, mass campaigns and representations to regulators, govt. authorities and courts.
2014 General Elections
On 27 February 2014, the BJP announced its first list of candidates for the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections and Somaiya was fielded as the BJP candidate from Mumbai North East. He defeated the incumbent Sanjay Dina Patil of the Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party.
