Ex-RSS activist rises to helm of U’khand politics

DEHRADUN: BJP veteran Trivendra Singh Rawat, who started his career as a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, rose through the ranks to be eventually nominated as the chief minister of Uttarakhand.

Born in a family of a soldier in Khaira-Sain, Rawat’s career graph registered a steady rise from humble beginnings.

“My father wanted me to take up a career in the army but I chose politics as my vocation,” Rawat had told HT in 2007 when he was the state agriculture minister in the BJP government.

The 56-year-old graduated from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University before joining the RSS in 1983. Rawat’s stint in the RSS saw him propagating its Hindutva philosophy even when he was forced to go underground during the Ram Temple agitation in the early 1990s.

“I had to go underground like many of my fellow workers yet I continued my work as a pracharak,” he said, recalling his initial days with the Sangh Parivar when was largely active in the undivided Uttar Pradesh.

Soon his organisational skills were noticed by the BJP and he was sent to his home state of Uttarakhand as the party’s organisational secretary. He held the post from 1997 to 2002.

Two years later, the BJP lost its maiden assembly elections in the hill state but Rawat won from his Doiwala seat.

He was re-elected from there when the BJP won the next assembly polls in 2007 and was appointed a cabinet minister.

After the saffron party lost the 2012 assembly elections, Rawat was made its Jharkhand in-charge.

Rawat, a Thakur, is close to BJP chief Amit Shah and was one of the three deputies attached to him in Uttar Pradesh during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Party insiders said Rawat pipped former minister Prakash

Pant for the post of the chief minister because of his long association with the RSS. “Besides, he also got the benefit of his proximity to Amit Shah,” a senior party leader said.

Rawat’s detractors have expressed doubts over his ability to run the state as the chief minister. His supporters, however, have rubbished all such doubts.

“Rawatji’s track record as a minister had been noticeable not only because of his ability to deliver but also because of the way he handled the bureaucracy,” state BJP spokesperson Virendra Singh Bisht said.