Dr Shakti Kumar Pandey
HAVING undertaken a long journey in politics right from the position of District Secretary of the ‘Bharatiya Jansangh’ to BJP’s National President, the second time now, Prof. Rajnath Singh has never looked back in his political career. With a rising career graph, Prof. Singh has made a commendable contribution to the Bhartiya Janta Party. He proved his organisational acumen when he mobilized the youth and travelled through the nooks and corners of the country as the National President of BJYM. He shot into limelight when as the Education Minister he introduced the controversial yet successful Anti-Copying Ordinance in UP. It was really a hard nut to crack, but he did it, proving that he was ‘the leader with a difference’.
A Professor of Physics, who had taught physical dynamics to undergraduate students of KB Postgraduate College Mirzapur, Raj nath Singh taught social-political dynamics to the BJP workers and youths of the country. He took major decisions as the State President and the Chief Minister of UP. Later, he served the party and nation as the Union Minister of NDA, and the National President of the BJP.
Prof. Rajnath Singh was born in Bhabhaura village in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh. His father Shri Ram Badan Singh was a middle class farmer. Having completed his early education in the village, Singh went to the adjoining Mirzapur city for his B. Sc. Degree. He passed his B. Sc. from KB Postgraduate College Mirzapur. Thereafter, Rajnath Singh went to Gorakhpur University for his Master’s Degree in Physics. Having obtained that, he got an opportunity in the year 1971 to serve as the Assistant Professor of Physics in the same KB Postgraduate College Mirzapur from where he had passed his graduation. He resigned from his College post only after becoming the Chief Minister of UP in the year 2000.
Rajnath Singh had been a ‘Bal Swayam Sevak’ associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1964, while he was merely 13, and became ‘Tehsil Karyavah’ of Mirzapur. However, he was inducted into ‘Bharatiya Jan Sangh’ as its District General Secretary in 1973. In 1975, aged 24, Rajnath Singh was appointed District President of the Jana Sangh. Having passed more than twenty months in Jail during Emergency Period of 1975-76, he got the Janta Party ticket in 1977 from Mirzapur City, which he won. His rapid rise in politics at this young age also led him to leadership in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing. In 1984, he became the state president of the party’s youth wing. In 1986 he was appointed National General Secretary of the youth wing. In 1988, he finally rose to the position of National President in the BJYM, when he was also elected into the Uttar Pradesh legislative council.
In 1991, he became Education Minister in the first BJP government in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Major highlights of his tenure as Education Minister, in addition to the Anti-Copying Ordinance, included rewriting history texts and incorporating Vedic Mathematics into the syllabus. In April 1994, he was elected into the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian Parliament) and he became involved with the Advisory committee on Industry (1994–96), Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Agriculture, Business Advisory Committee, House Committee and the Committee on Human Resource Development.
On March 25, 1997, he became the President of the BJP’s unit in Uttar Pradesh and in 1999 he became the Union Cabinet Minister for Surface Transport. In the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajnath Singh took the job of Minister of Agriculture and was faced with the difficult task of maintaining one of the most volatile areas of India’s economy. He was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 28 October 2000 to 8 March 2002.
On December 24, 2005, following the resignation of Lal Krishna Advani, he was unanimously elected as the BJP’s National President. He was re-elected in November 2006 with no challenges to his candidacy, and 15 nominations from the committee. Later, he was succeeded by Nitin Gadkari in 2009. After BJP lost power in the 2004 general elections, it was forced to sit in the Opposition. After the resignation of prominent figure Lal Krishna Advani, and the murder of strategist Pramod Mahajan, Rajnath Singh sought to rebuild the party by focusing on the most basic Hindutva ideologies. He has announced his position of “no compromise” in relation to the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
Although his leadership started off with disappointing results for the party in five states in May 2006, he was revitalized by the success of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh’s municipal elections later that year, and in early 2007 he oversaw BJP victories in the states of Uttarakhand and Punjab, as well as municipal elections in Delhi, Chandigarh and across Maharashtra. The Assembly elections in Gujarat added a new dimension to the string of successful electoral victories by the BJP in 2007. In 2008 the BJP formed its first ever Government in south India when it rose to power in Karnataka. The year 2008 also saw BJP registering thumping victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It was indeed the most successful phase in the BJP’s history when it managed to win 5 Assembly elections (Uttranchal, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh) in a row.
Recently, Rajnath Singh persuaded the former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh to rejoin the BJP, to which the latter agreed. And an announcement to this effect was made on 21st January at a massive rally in Lucknow. Rajnath’s election as the new BJP chief is likely to boost the morale of state BJP workers in UP, and BJP will certainly be a gainer in forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in this most significant state.
