CP Joshi: a quiet performer in Rajasthan politics

CP Joshi, a professor of Psychology who turned to politics and swung the December 2008 Rajasthan assembly election result in the favour of the Congress, gets a central cabinet berth on Friday.

CP Joshi, a professor of psychology who turned to politics and swung the December 2008 Rajasthan assembly election result in the favour of the Congress, gets a central cabinet berth on Friday. Though he comes off as a shy and simple man, he seems quite adept at realpolitik.

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Joshi, 58, has won the Lok Sabha elections from Bhilwara constituency in Rajasthan.

As the state unit president of the party, he is credited as the architect of the Congress victory in the assembly elections - though he himself had lost by just one vote.

It is his and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's efforts that the Congress walked away with as many as 19 of the total 25 parliamentary seats in the state. This was a total shock to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had won 21 seats in the 2004 elections.

Joshi was a cabinet minister in Rajasthan from 1998 to 2003 and held important portfolios like education, panchayati raj, rural development, public health engineering, policy planning and information technology.

Joshi, who sports a light beard, was born in Kunwaria in Rajsamand district July 29, 1950 and did his masters in physics and a doctorate in psychology besides holding a bachelors degree in law.