Tirath Singh Rawat: From RSS pracharak to Uttarakhand chief minister

Born in Seeron village of Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal district in 1964, Tirath Singh Rawat had his first brush with public life as the RSS pracharak from 1983 to 1988.

Updated on: Mar 10, 2021, 17:44:17 IST

By Neeraj Santoshi, Hindustan Times, Dehradun

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Tirath Singh Rawat was sworn-in as the new chief minister of Uttarakhand on Wednesday, a day after the resignation of Trivendra Singh Rawat. The CM will have a year’s time till the next state elections.

Dehradun: BJP central observer Raman Singh greets Tirath Singh Rawat after being elected as the new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, in Dehradun, (PTI)

Born in Seeron village of Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal district in 1964, Tirath Singh Rawat had his first brush with public life as the RSS pracharak from 1983 to 1988.

Rawat, with a master’s degree in sociology and a diploma holder in journalism, entered active student politics and became the organisational secretary of ABVP Uttarakhand unit and later national secretary of ABVP. He was also the president of the student union at Hemwati Nandan Garhwal University in 1992. Subsequently, he became the state vice president of Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.

An MP from Pauri Garhwal and former state BJP president, Rawat was selected as party’s chief minister in the legislature party meeting held in Dehradun on Wednesday morning.

Watch | Tirath Singh Rawat sworn-in as Uttarakhand CM: All you need to know

Rawat participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation and spent two months in jail. He also actively participated in the agitation for statehood of Uttarakhand.

He was elected as a member of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council in 1997 and remained so till 2002.

After Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, he became the first education minister of the newly formed state. In 2007, he was elected as the state general secretary of Uttarakhand BJP.

In 2012, Rawat was elected as MLA from Chaubattakhal assembly seat from his native Pauri Garhwal district, and the following year (February 2013) he was appointed as the president of Uttarakhand BJP. He remained state president of the party till December 2015.

In 2017, the party appointed him as the BJP national secretary.

In May 2019, he was elected as member of parliament from the Pauri Lok Sabha seat, after defeating his rival Manish Khanduri, his political guru BC Khanduri’s son, by over 3.5 lakh votes. In the same year, he was also in-charge of the elections in Himachal Pradesh.

“As names were doing the rounds in the media on Tuesday, I got many phone calls whether my husband is also being considered as there was no talk about it. I told them to wait. Because I knew that party would give him the responsibility. He has struggled a lot and never cared about money. Because of his work in RSS, he was sent to ABVP and later to BJP,” Rashami Rawat, wife of Tirath Singh Rawat, told local media on Tuesday night.

“We are very happy that a leader from our district and that too such a humble one, has been given the reins of the state,” said Raj Kumar, a resident of Pauri Garhwal.

Recalling the organisational abilities of Rawat, his friend Dinesh Arya said: “I saw up close how Rawat was good at managing cadre and organisational issues very efficiently and democratically. He is down-to-earth and listens to the party cadre.”

"His best quality is that he is able to reach out to people, MLAs, party officials, workers and public and work in the best interests of the party. I am sure under his leadership, the state will do good, and the party base will be strengthened further, " said Ramesh Bahuguna, BJP state working committee member and former district president of Almora.

Many Congress leaders also admit that Rawat is a humble and low-profile person.

“Rawat is a soft-spoken, humble, low profile and down-to-earth man. This makes him popular among his party circles who see him as somebody who wouldn’t damage them politically. His godfather in politics was BC Khanduri, who promoted him a lot. But as Khanduri’s position weakened in the party, Rawat was not given a ticket in 2017, which upset him. But then he was made national secretary. Let us now see what he can do in the rest of ten months”, said a Congress leader not wishing to be named.

(With inputs from Vipin Negi and Ankur Sharma)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neeraj Santoshi
Neeraj Santoshi is the Chief of Bureau for Hindustan Times in Uttarakhand, where he leads the state reporting team while covering government, politics, environment, wildlife, Uttarakhand High Court, and issues shaping the Himalayan region. With more than two decades in journalism across conflict zones, he has covered politically sensitive regions and environmentally fragile landscapes, and focused on stories that combine public interest with in-depth storytelling. An alumnus of Pune University with a Master’s in Communication Studies, he has reported extensively from Jammu & Kashmir (2003-2010), Madhya Pradesh (2010 to 2018 ) and Uttarakhand (Since 2018), covering subjects ranging from insurgency, elections and governance to wildlife conservation, mining, climate change, agriculture, human rights and social justice. He has covered politics and legislative assemblies of both Jammu & Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh over more than a decade. Before taking over as Chief of Bureau in Uttarakhand, he served as Special Correspondent with Hindustan Times in Madhya Pradesh and earlier reported for both Hindustan Times and The Indian Express in Jammu & Kashmir, where he covered state politics, environment and insurgency-related developments. Over the years, his stories have focused on environmental degradation, wildlife, illegal mining, governance and the changing social fabric of Himalayan states and Central India. He is particularly interested in long-form explanatory journalism, and stories that explore the intersection of ecology, conservation, governance and society. Outside the newsroom, Neeraj enjoys reading widely on neuroscience, consciousness studies, Artificial Intelligence and quantum physics, with a special interest in Kashmiri Tantric Shaivist traditions. He is also passionate about wildlife, mountaineering and the Himalayas, interests that continue to inform his reporting and deepen his understanding of the region he covers.Read More

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