Uttarakhand CM-designate Trivendra Singh Rawat: An RSS 'pracharak' who struck it rich in politics

From an obscuren RSS pracharak for Dehradun city to the chief ministership of Uttarakhand, it hasbeen an amazing journey for Trivendra Singh Rawat whose fierceloyalty to the BJP and RSS saw him pip rival heavyweights likeSatpal Maharaj to the post.

Coupled with his administrative and organisational skillsand experience, his loyalty to the party and RSS ideologyseemed to have won the day for him. So impressed was Home Minister Rajnath Singh with the his unflinching devotion that while asking people to vote forRawat, he had said, "Trivendra Singh Rawat ne kabhi apninishtha nahin badli (he never switched his loyalty)."

The ringing endorsement by the fellow Thakur leader from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh seems to have worked for Rawat, 56, who wrested the Doiwala seat from Congress with an impressive margin of 24,869 votes to win it for the third time.

His organisational skills were put to test in Jharkhandwhere he came out with flying colours, guiding the BJP to aresounding electoral victory in the assembly polls in 2014 asparty in-charge.

Rawat also has considerable administrative experience ashe was a minister in the BJP governments led by B C Khanduriand Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

Born in December 1960 into a family where serving in thearmed forces was a tradition, with his father Pratap SinghRawat in Garhwal Rifles, he studied in a school built of mudand thatch in his native village of Khairasain in PauriGarhwal district.

Though average in studies, Rawat evinced keen interest insocio-cultural work at an early age, a fact which explains hisjoining the RSS aged 19 years. Six years later he was appointed RSS pracharak forDehradun city. After an active association with the RSS for nearly 14years, he was made BJP's organisational secretary.

He was alsoactively associated with the Uttarakhand statehood agitationduring which he was arrested several times.

Rawat, who is a post graduate in journalism from GarhwalUniversity's Shrinagar campus, worked for many years as Pradesh BJP organisation secretary before being elected for the first time from Doiwala seat in the state's first assembly elections in 2002.

Rawat won again in 2007 and was made agriculture minister. Rawat reaped the reward for his organisational skills when he was given the responsibility of the party's nations secretary in 2013. His successful stint in that capacity earned him the post of co-in charge of the party's affairs in Uttar Pradesh just a year later in 2014. '

He was later made BJP in-charge ofJharkhand ahead of the crucial assembly election, aresponsibility he discharged well to further strengthen theparty leadership's trust in him. Rawat had lost Doiwala seat in a by poll to Congress's Hira Singh Bisht in 2014, a defeat widely attributed to the infighting in the party.

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Considered a man rooted in rural traditions, Rawat loves hill delicacies and keeps visiting his village from time to time to relish those, especially during winter when he loves to eat millet (Manduwa) rotis, his elder brother Veerendrasays. He is the ninth and youngest of his siblings who havestill not forgotten their rural roots. One of his elder brothers is the post master of the village post office at Khairasain, while another grows aromatic plant on a piece of land near Jahariyakhal on a commercial scale.