Pilot, author, Narmada activist: 5 facts about late Union minister Anil Dave

Union environment minister Anil Madhav Dave, a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2009, died at the age of 60. He was reportedly unwell and was also not attending office.

Union environment minister Anil Madhav Dave passed away on Thursday at the age of 60.

Union minister Anil Madhav Dave passed away on Thursday morning. (Praveen Bajpai/HT photo)

Here are five things we can recall about the late Union minister:

1- Anil Madhav Dave was the first leader from Madhya Pradesh BJP who made it to Rajya Sabha for a third consecutive term.

An RSS worker, who remained a bachelor, Dave did his post-graduation in commerce from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore. He was widely known for his work for conservation of Narmada river through his NGO Narmada Samgra, where he was the secretary.

2- A commercial pilot licence (CPL) holder and intellectual face of the ruling party, Dave had covered the Narmada stretch aboard a small plane and also a raft. He had also authored several books.

3- Dave held several international conferences on Narmada bank at Hoshangabad to draw the attention of people to the condition of not only the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh but other rivers across the globe.

He played a major role in electioneering of the ruling party during the assembly elections since 2003. He headed the party’s war room in association with Vijesh Lunawat and Shailendra Sharma whereas MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan led the party in the field.

5- He was one of the architects behind success of World Hindi Conference held in Bhopal in September 2015 and also the ideological conference (Vaicharik Mahakumbh) held during Simhastha at Ujjain this year.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was said to be greatly influenced by Dave’s work on environment which earned him the berth of minister of state (independent charge) for environment in Narendra Modi’s cabinet.