Rajnath Singh

Rajnath Singh MP
File:Rajnath singh.png
Minister of Home Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 26 May 2014
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Sushilkumar Shinde
President of the Bharatiya Janata Party
In office 23 January 2013 – 8 July 2014
Preceded by	Nitin Gadkari
Succeeded by	Amit Shah
In office 24 December 2005 – 24 December 2009
Preceded by	L. K. Advani
Succeeded by	Nitin Gadkari
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
In office 28 October 2000 – 8 March 2002
Governor	Suraj Bhan Vishnu Kant Shastri
Preceded by	Ram Prakash Gupta
Succeeded by	Mayawati
Member of Parliament for Lucknow
Incumbent
Assumed office 16 May 2014
Preceded by	Lalji Tandon
Personal details
Born	(1951-07-10) 10 July 1951 Bhabhaura, India
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party
Spouse	Savitri Singh
Children	Pankaj Singh Neeraj Singh Anamika Singh
Alma mater	Gorakhpur University
Website	Official website

Rajnath Singh (born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who currently serves as the Union Minister of Home Affairs in the Narendra Modi government. He previously served as the Chief Minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh and as a Cabinet Minister in the Vajpayee Government. He has also served as the President of BJP twice, 2005-2009 and 2013-2014. He began his career as a physics lecturer and used his long-term connections with the nationalist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to become involved with the Janata Party.

Early life

Rajnath Singh was born in the small village of Bhabhaura in Chandauli district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in a Rajput family. His father was Ram Badan Singh and his mother was Gujarati Devi. He was born into a family of farmers and went on to secure a masters degree in physics, acquiring first division results from the Gorakhpur University. Rajnath Singh had been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1964, at the age of 13 and remained connected with the organisation even during his employment as a physics lecturer in Mirzapur. In 1974, he was appointed secretary for the Mirzapur unit of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, a Hindutva based political party.

Political career

In 1975, aged 24, Rajnath Singh was appointed District President of the Jana Sangh. In 1977, he was elected Member of Legislative Assembly from the Mirzapur constituency. He became the State President of the BJP youth wing in 1984, the National general secretary in 1986 and the National President in 1988. 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 included Anti-Copying Act, 1992, which made copying a non-bailable offence., 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 25 March 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 2000, he became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and was twice elected as MLA from Haidergarh in 2001 and 2002. He tried to rationalise the reservation structure in government jobs by introducing the most Backward Classes among the OBC and SC, so that the benefit of reservation can reach the lowest status of Society.

In 2003, Singh was appointed as the Minister of Agriculture and subsequently for Food Processing in the NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and was faced with the difficult task of maintaining one of the most volatile areas of India's economy. During this period he initiated a few epoch-making projects including the Kisan Call Centre and Farm Income Insurance Scheme. He brought down interest rates on Agriculture loans and also established Farmer Commission and initiated Farms Income Insurance Scheme.

After the 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 announced his position of "no compromise" in relation to the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya at any cost and commended the rule of Vajpayee as Prime Minister, pointing towards all the developments the National Democratic Alliance made for the ordinary people of India. He also criticised the role of the English language in India, claiming that it caused erosion of cultural values.

On 24 January 2013, following the resignation of Nitin Gadkari due to corruption charges, Rajnath Singh was re-elected as the BJP's National President. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), also declared him as more acceptable choice for president. He was credited for getting first BJP government in southern part of India.

He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow constituency and was subsequently elected as a Member of the Indian Parliament. Speaking furiously at a rally in Varanasi constituency in 2014 election campaign, he quoted famously "If not Modi,then who else can make India a super-power like America?" thus proving the long term speculation that he is an ardent fan of Narendra Modi .

He was appointed as the Union Minister of Home Affairs in the Narendra Modi government and was sworn in on 26 May 2014.

External links

• BJP India
• Sri Rajnath Singh