Rajnath Singh
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| Appointed Party President | December 24, 2005 |
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| Date of Birth | July 10, 1951 |
| Place of Birth | Varanasi, India |
| Political Party | Bharatiya Janata Party |
| Profession | Physics lecturer |
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Rajnath Singh (born July 10, 1951 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) is the current leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in India. He was previously president of the BJP youth wing and the BJP's unit in his home state of Uttar Pradesh. He was initially a physics lecturer, but soon used his long-term connections with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to get involved with the Janata Party, which led him to numerous positions within Uttar Pradesh.
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[edit] Early life
Rajnath Singh was born in the small village of Bhabhora in the Varanasi district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His father was Ram Badan Singh and his mother was Gujarati Devi.[1] He was born into a simple farmer's family in the region and went on to secure a masters degree in physics, acquiring first division results from the Gorakhpur University.[1] Rajnath Singh had been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1964, at the age of 13 and remained connected with the organization even when he took up his job of a physics lecturer in Mirzapur.[1] In 1974, he was appointed secretary for the Mirzapur unit of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, also a Hindutva based political party.[1]
Rajnath Singh is married to Savitri Kumari Singh and has two sons and a daughter. He takes an active interest in history, culture and science and technology.[1]
[edit] Early political career
In 1975, aged 24, Rajnath Singh was appointed District President of the Jan Sangh.[1] In 1977, he was elected Member of Legislative Assembly from the Mirzapur constituency.[1] His rapid rise in politics at this young age also led him to leadership in the Bharatiya Janata Party's youth wing.[1] In 1984, he became state president of the youth wing, in 1986 he was appointed national general secretary of the youth wing.[1] In 1988, he finally rose to the position of National President in the BJP youth and was also elected into the Uttar Pradesh legislative council.[1]
In 1991, he became education minister in the first BJP government in Uttar Pradesh. Major highlights of his tenure as education minister included removing distorted history from textbooks and incorporating vedic mathematics into the syllabus.[1] In April 1994, he was elected into the Rajya Sabha 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.[1]
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.[1] In the NDA government led by Atal Behari 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.[2]
On December 24, 2005, following the resignation of Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP and RSS elected him to be the Party's President. He was reelected in November 2006 with no challenges to his candidacy, and 15 nominations from the committee.[3]
[edit] BJP President
Rajnath Singh has entered the BJP while it is in a crisis of sorts, after Atal Behari Vajpayee lost power in the previous elections. After the resignation of prominent figure Lal Krishna Advani, and the untimely death of strategist Pramod Mahajan he seeks to rebuild the party by focusing on the most basic Hindutva ideologies.[4] He has announced his position of "no compromise" in relation to the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.[4] He commends the rule of Vajpayee, pointing towards all the developments the National Democratic Alliance made for the ordinary people of India, while he lashes out at the Congress and Marxist parties for minority appeasement and increasing inflation.[4] He is expected to remain president at least until 2008.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Rajnath Singh: Profile", Zee News.
- ^ "Courage, Mr Rajnath Singh", The Hindu.
- ^ Rajnath Singh re-elected as BJP chief Sify - November 26, 2006
- ^ a b c "It's basic instinct for Rajnath Singh", The Times of India.
[edit] See Also
| Brahmo Samaj · Prarthana Samaj · Arya Samaj · Ramakrishna Mission · Gandhism · Hindutva · Sri Aurobindo Ashram · Parisada Hindu Dharma |
| Topics |
| Bhakti · Caste · Indian independence movement ·Persecution of Hindus ·Shuddhi ·Women in Hinduism |
| Important Hindu reformers and Hindu revivalist writers |
| Sri Aurobindo · Ananda Coomaraswamy · Alain Daniélou · Koenraad Elst · David Frawley · Sita Ram Goel · M. S. Golwalkar · Mahatma Gandhi · Harsh Narain · Gedong Bagus Oka · The Mother · Srila Prabhupada · Raja Ram Mohun Roy · Ramakrishna · Dayananda Saraswati · V. D. Savarkar · Keshub Chandra Sen · Swami Sivananda · Arun Shourie · Ram Swarup · Debendranath Tagore · Rabindranath Tagore · B. G. Tilak · Vivekananda · Yogananda |
| Organisations: | Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh - Vishva Hindu Parishad - Bharatiya Janata Party - Bajrang Dal - Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad - Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh - Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh |
| Major figures: | K.B. Hedgewar - Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar - Syama Prasad Mookerjee - Atal Bihari Vajpayee - Praveen Togadia |
| Related: | Hindutva - Hindu nationalism - Integral humanism - Ram Janmabhoomi - India Shining |
