At centre of Siddaramaiah row, meet Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot: BJP, RSS ranks to top party, govt posts

A prominent Dalit face from Madhya Pradesh, Gehlot, 76, has been an RSS and BJP veteran. His move granting sanction for a police investigation into Siddaramaiah’s alleged involvement in the MUDA scam case came on petitions filed by anti-corruption activists, who claimed that the CM’s wife Parvathi was allotted 14 housing plots in Mysuru in exchange for her 3.16-acre plot of land by the MUDA in 2021, when the BJP was in power.

Siddaramaiah has challenged Gehlot’s sanction in the Karnataka High Court, which granted him interim relief and adjourned the next hearing to August 29. At the same time, the Congress has launched a political campaign against the Governor, calling him a “puppet” of the BJP-ruled Centre.

A native of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, Gehlot has been associated with the RSS, the BJP’s ideological fountainhead, since 1962. A graduate from the Vikram University, Gehlot’s affiliation with the RSS began with attending shakhas in Ujjain. He went on to serve as the secretary and chief organiser of the Nagda Junction Shakha in Ujjain.

Gehlot later also became a treasurer and secretary in various labour unions linked to the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Gehlot had also been associated with the Madhya Pradesh Balai Samaj, which worked for the uplift of the Scheduled Caste (SC) group. The Balai community accounts for 11.7% of the state’s population.

Gehlot’s activism led to multiple detentions, including a 10-month period in jail under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during the Emergency in 1975-76. He was later sent to judicial custody because of his agitations in Ujjain, Bhopal and Delhi.

His political career took off with the Janata Party, in which he served as the general secretary and vice president of the Ujjain (rural) district unit from 1977 to 1980.

By 1980, when he was first elected to the Assembly from the Alot SC-reserved constituency, he had joined the BJP. Though he was unable to retain the seat in 1985, he was re-elected in the 1990 and 1993 Assembly polls.

During his stint in the Assembly, Gehlot played a pivotal role in various committees, including the Estimates and the Labour Advisory Committee, and served as a minister of state in the Water Resources, Narmada Valley Development, and Panchayat and Rural Development ministries. His work as an MLA earned him the “best legislator” award in 1996.

Between 1984 and 1986, he was appointed as the secretary of the state’s Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP’s youth wing. He later served as the state BJP vice-president. By 1986, Gehlot had risen to become the president of the BJP’s Ratlam district unit.

Gehlot gained more prominence after he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from the Shajapur seat. He was re-elected as an MP in 1998 and 1999, and was a member of several key parliamentary committees, including those on agriculture, labour and welfare, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. He was also the BJP’s whip in the Lok Sabha in his third term. Though the BJP lost power in 2004, Gehlot retained his Lok Sabha seat. In 2009, though, he contested and lost from Dewas.

In 2012, Gehlot was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. He also served as the BJP’s Karnataka state-in-charge between 2006 and 2014 when he was the party’s general secretary.

Gehlot was renominated to the Upper House for his second term in 2018 and became the BJP’s Leader of the House in 2019. Between 2014 and 2021, he served as the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment. In July 2021, the Narendra Modi government appointed him as the 13th Governor of Karnataka.