info for Pakistanis:
A former RSS activist who was the
Home Minister in Narendra Modi's first stint as Prime Minister,
Rajnath Singh is popular in the
BJP ranks and headed the party before
Amit Shah took charge.
An
amiable politician who has friends in almost all political parties, it was when he headed the
Home Ministry that the government launched a major crackdown on the Maoists and other insurgents.
He gave a free hand to the
National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take into custody several key separatist leaders in
Jammu and Kashmir.
Born on July 10, 1951 into a farmer's family in then Varanasi's Babhora village,
Rajnath Singh joined the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) in 1964 at age 13. He was with the RSS even when he was a
lecturer in the
K.B. Post Graduate College at Mirzapur,
Uttar Pradesh.
Singh started his political career as
Organisational Secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's (ABVP) Gorakhpur division, holding the post from 1969 to 1971.
In 1972, he became the
RSS General Secretary of
Mirzapur and then entered active
politics in 1974. He became the District
President of Jana Sangh and a key figure in the
JP Movement that shook then
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
He was elected as an MLA in
Uttar Pradesh in 1977. He became a member of the
Rajya Sabha in 1994 and the
Chief Whip of the party in the
Upper House.
On November 22, 1999, he was inducted into the
Atal Bihari Vajpayee government as the
Union Surface Transport Minister.
During this period he initiated the NHDP (National Highway Development Programme), a dream project of Vajpayee.
Rajnath Singh became the
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister from 2000 and after two years served as the
Agriculture Minister in
Vajpayee's Cabinet between 2003 and 2004.
He was the
President of the
BJP before
Amit Shah took charge in 2014.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Singh retained the
Lucknow seat by defeating his nearest rival
Poonam Sinha of the
Samajwadi Party.
--IANS
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