From rebel to second term as Rajasthan chief — who is Madan Rathore, the new Rajasthan BJP chief

Later that month, at PM Modi’s rally in Pali, Rathore spoke just before the PM, inviting the latter to make his address.

Rathore, 70, is a native of Pali district and was MLA twice during Vasundhara Raje’s two tenures as chief minister between 2003-08 and 2013-18.

After being announced as the party’s RS pick in early 2024, Rathore had said that one needs to have patience and that the party indeed recognises it. He had said that at the Pali rally in November, PM Modi called him and “unhone dhandhas bandhaya (consoled)” him on the stage before everyone.

Rathore’s first Assembly win came in 2003 when he was fielded from Sumerpur in Pali and defeated Bina Kak of Congress. However, he was overlooked in 2008; it is said that he was dropped following differences with then party state president Om Mathur. Rathore was fielded again in 2013, defeating Kak once again. He was subsequently made party’s deputy Chief Whip in the Assembly during this term (2014 – 2018). But for the last two elections – 2018 and 2023 – the party had again overlooked him.

Rathore has been associated with RSS since his teenage years and underwent officers’ training at RSS’ Sangh Shiksha Varg in 1968 – when he was just 14 as per his Rajya Sabha profile – and then in 1971 and 1972. At that time, he was active in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and played an active role in students’ union elections too. For most of the 70s, he was an RSS Pracharak and was active in his native Pali and Jaipur rural. During the Emergency, he is credited with publishing Krantidoot newspaper and “leading an organised struggle against Emergency.”

He was associated with various movements in the 1970s and 80s, as well as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1992 when he was imprisoned. By the 80s, he had also moved to the BJP and was BJP’s Pali District Treasurer in 1987-89 and subsequently party’s Pali District President for four terms: 1989-1992, 1992-1996, 2003-2005 and 2013-2015. He married Usha Rathore in 1982 and has two sons and one daughter.

He had replaced C P Joshi, who was appointed as the state president in March 2023, ahead of the Assembly elections. Joshi had offered his resignation to the party high command following the party’s ‘unsatisfactory’ performance in last year’s Lok Sabha elections. The party had lost 11 LS seats in Rajasthan after winning all 25 seats in 2014 and 2019.

Party sources had said that there was a need to balance the caste equations since both Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and outgoing party chief Joshi were Brahmins. Rathore hails from the OBC Ghanchi caste, and is said to have a good equation with former CM Vasundhara Raje, among others.