Jhunjhunu, July 16: The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Saturday announced West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as its vice-president candidate.
Dhankhar originally hails from Kithana village of Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan. Dhankhar was elected to the Ninth Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) from the Jhunjhunu parliamentary seat in Rajasthan as a Janata Dal candidate. At the same time, for some time he was V.P. Singh became Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs in the coalition government. Dhankhar may become the second Rajasthani to become the Vice President after Late Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.
In 1991, he left the Janata Dal and joined the Congress. He contested Lok Sabha elections from Ajmer in 1991 on Congress ticket but lost to BJP’s Rasa Singh Rawat. In 1993, he won the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly election from Kishangarh in Ajmer district by contesting on a Congress ticket. He defeated Jagjit Singh of the BJP by one thousand nine hundred 58 votes. In 1998, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Jhunjhunu on a Congress ticket and stood third. In 2003, he had joined the BJP after Vasundhara Raje became the BJP state president. In the last assembly elections, there was talk of him joining the Congress, but he did not leave the BJP.
Jagdeep Dhankhar was born on 18 May 1951 in a simple farmer family in Kithana village of Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan. His father Chaudhary Gokulchand Dhankhar used to do farming. Dhankhar was educated from Sainik School Chittorgarh and Rajasthan University Jaipur.
He started practicing in the Rajasthan High Court from 1977. In 1986, at the age of 35, Dhankhar became the President of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association. He was also a member of the Bar Council. Dhankhar has also been a senior Supreme Court lawyer and a member of the International Court of Arbitration, Paris.
Dhankhar played an important role in providing reservation to the Jats of Rajasthan in the Other Backward Classes. There has been a wave of happiness among the people of Rajasthan, including his village Kithana home district Jhunjhunu, after Dhankhar was declared the vice presidential candidate.
