The quiet and retiring Jagat Prakash Nadda from Himachal Pradesh is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s choice over the younger MP and BJP Yuva Morcha chief Anurag Thakur as the sole representative from the northern hill State in the Union Cabinet.
A former minister in his home State, Nadda has been a General Secretary in the central BJP since 2010 and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2012.
For the last four years that he has been in Delhi, Nadda has barely interacted with the media or bothered cultivating senior leaders, a quality that is clearly valued in the present ruling establishment.
Known for keeping his head down and following order in the organisation ranks, Nadda has known the Prime Minister since he was handling political affairs in Himachal, Haryana and Punjab as the party General Secretary in the late 1990’s.
Although he hails from Vijaypur village in the Bilaspur district of HP, Nadda grew up in Bihar and studied in Patna. He went back to his home State for higher studies, joining Himachal Pradesh University during the turbulent 1970s.
Student leaderThere he joined the RSS’s student wing, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and was active in the JP Movement. During his leadership, the ABVP defeated the Students Federation of India (SFI) for the first time in the Left-dominated campus and Nadda became the student union president.
He rose to become the top functionary of the RSS as General Secretary (Organisation) in the Himachal Pradesh State BJP unit before Murli Manohar Joshi appointed him president of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.
Nadda won his first Assembly election from Bilaspur in 1993 at the peak of an anti-BJP wave in the hill State. In 1998, he became Health Minister in PK Dhumal’s Cabinet.
He lost the 2003 Assembly Elections but won again in 2007 and was appointed Forest Minister by Dhumal where he earned a reputation for being upright and honest.
The laidback highlander is now being rewarded for his discretion, honesty and administrative experience.