Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh took oath as Union Cabinet Minister at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday. He has been a minister in PM Modi's cabinet since 2014 when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister for the first time.
Rajnath Singh, the defence minister secured the Lucknow seat for the third consecutive term, overcoming Samajwadi Party candidate Ravidas Mehrotra by 1,35,159 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Rajnath Singh was born on 10 July 1951 in the district of Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh and has a master's degree in physics from Gorakhpur University in Uttar Pradesh. He also served as a lecturer of Physics at KB Post-Graduate College Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. He served as a Member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 1980 and from 2001 to 2003.
When in 1975, a National Emergency was imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, he vehemently opposed the move. He was arrested in 1975 and was in detention for two years.
He was Minister of Education in the Uttar Pradesh government from 1991 to 1992. He served as Minister of Surface Transport in the Union Cabinet from 1999 to 2000.
During his tenure as Education Minister in Uttar Pradesh, he took some landmark decisions like introducing the Anti Copying Act and Vedic Mathematics in the syllabus and correcting various distorted portions of history textbooks. In March 1997 he became BJP Uttar Pradesh chief and expanded the party base and strengthened the organisation.
Later he was elected as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, he served as Minister of Agriculture in the Union Cabinet.
He was elected to Rajya Sabha from 1994 to 1999 and again from 2003 to 2008.
In 2003, Rajnath Singh became Minister of Agriculture in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet at Centre. As Union Minister of Agriculture and subsequently, for Food Processing he spearheaded projects like Kisan Call Centre and Farm Income Insurance Scheme.
In 2007 as BJP National President proposed a 33 per cent reservation for women in the party set-up. In 2009 he was elected to the 15th Lok Sabha. He also served as a Member of the Committee on Ethics on October 7, 2009.
Rajnath Singh was inducted into the Union of India's Cabinet in a Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 27, 2014, as the Minister of Home Affairs. In 2014 he became Union Minister of Home Affairs in the Narendra Modi government and in 2019 was made Defence Minister of the country.
After becoming the Home Minister, in 2015 he announced 33 per cent of reservations for women in all paramilitary forces, including the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
When he was Defence Minister, Singh in August 2020 he decided to ban the import of 101 defence-related items. In May 2021 it was decided that another set of 108 military weapons and systems including next-generation corvettes, airborne early warning systems, tank engines and radars would be entirely made in India.
Congress has won the Lucknow seat six times, and BJP has won nine times including this time. Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, sister of the country's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, became the first MP from this high-profile seat.
The constituency has been a stronghold of the BJP since 1991. It gained prominence with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee representing it. Vajpayee, after initial setbacks in 1955, 1957 and 1962, won the seat five times.
The 2019 Lok Sabha election in Lucknow recorded a voter turnout of 54.72 per cent. BJP's candidate Rajnath Singh received 6,33,026 votes defeating SP's Poonam Sinha and Congress' Acharya Pramod Krishnam, while receiving 56.70 per cent of total votes.
In the 2014 elections, the BJP's Rajnath Singh, again with 5,61,106 marginal votes, defeated the Congress' Rita Bahuguna Joshi, securing 5,61,106 votes and 54.52 per cent of the vote share. (ANI)
