West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has been nominated as the ruling NDA’s candidate for the post of Vice President of India. BJP president JP Nadda described Mr Dhankhar as a “kisan putra” (son of a farmer), who established himself as the “governor of the people”.
Here are 5 facts about Jagdeep Dhankhar:
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Jat Jagdeep Dhankhar was born in 1951 in a small village Kithana in Rajasthan in a farmer family.
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He started out as a lawyer and practiced in the Supreme Court and the Rajasthan High Court. He was named Senior Advocate in 1990, a year after joining politics.
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He was associated with former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal and followed his mentor when the latter walked out of the VP Singh government and became a Union minister in the minority government led by Chandrashekhar in 1990.
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He joined the Congress after PV Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister. But with the rise of Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan politics, he switched to the BJP and is said to soon become close to Vasundhara Raje.
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Mr Dhankhar was appointed as the Governor of West Bengal in July 2019. Since then, he has had frequent clashes with the Mamata Banerjee-led government.