Suraj Bhan

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Suraj Bhan (Hindi: सुरज भान) (1928-10-01-2006-08-06) was an Indian politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party, who was elected to the Lok Sabha on three occasions, and served as governor of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Bihar.

He was born on October 1, 1928 in the village of Mehlanwali in the Yamuna Nagar district of Hariyana, and studied MA and LLB at Punjab and Kurukshetra University .

[edit] Political career

He dropped his surname "Banswal" after joining active politics in 1967. He started his political career with the right-wing Bharatiya Jana Sangh which eventually became the Bharatiya Janata Party. He represented Ambala parliamentary constituency of Haryana in the 4th (1967-1970), 6th (1977-1979), 7th (1979-1984) and the 11th Lok Sabhas (1996-1997). In 1987, he was elected to Haryana assembly and served as Revenue Minister in Devi Lal's government between 1987 and 1989. After the BJP broke alliance with Devi Lal's party, he served as Leader of Opposition in the Haryana assembly (1989-1990).

In 1996, he was named Agriculture minister in First Vajpayee Ministry after which he served as deputy speaker of the 11th Lok Sabha, during the United Front government (Jul 1996 to Feb 1997). He contested 1998 Lok Sabha elections, but lost to Aman Kumar Nagra of the BSP. Afterwards, he took over as Governor of Uttar Pradesh (Apr 1998 - Nov 2000), Himachal Pradesh (Nov 2000 - May 2003), and officiated as Governor of Bihar (1999).

As acting governor of Bihar in 1999, he revoked the state minister for Horticulture, Weights and Measures, Rakesh Kumar alias Samrat Chaudhary alias Samrat Chandra Maurya, for being "underage". While Samrat's Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) certificate, gave his age as 18, he had given his age in various other legal documents as 20 or 31. Suraj Bhan was attacked for having done this out of political vendetta against Rabri Devi's Rashtriya Janata Dal government, since Samrat's father Shakuni Chaudhary had recently defected from BJP-ally Samata Party to RJD^[1]^[2].

In February 2004, he was appointed as Chairman of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) Commission^[3]. He died of cardiac arrest following multiple organ failure in August 2006 in New Delhi^[4].