LUCKNOW: Minister of State in the Union Cabinet Manoj Sinha has emerged as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ultimate choice for the post of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
In this case, the Prime Minister seems to have gone beyond caste and regional considerations, unlike the case of Manoharlal Khattar in Haryana, Devendra Fadnavis in Maharastra and Raghubar Das in Jharkhand.
With the BJP’s top leadership often surprising people with its choice of lesser-known leaders, the same could not be ruled out in Uttar Pradesh too.
Sinha also, perhaps, suits the criteria of performance and delivery, fixed by the Prime Minister, the most.
He currently holds the dual portfolios of Minister of State for Railways and Minister of State Communications in Modi’s Cabinet.
An agriculturalist at heart and a person who maintains a low profile, Sinha was among the best performing Members of Parliament in the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999.
Recently, he found a place in a list of honest MPs put out by a leading magazine. Sinha has also set an example by utilising his entire MPLAD Fund for the welfare of the people of his constituency.
As MoS for Railways, Sinha launched new trains to link eastern Uttar Pradesh’s towns and cities, including Modi’s constituency of Varanasi.
A civil engineer and an IIT-BHU alumnus, Sinha was born on July 1, 1959, in Mohanpura of Ghazipur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Sinha’s political career began when he was elected as the president of the Banaras Hindu University Students Union in 1982.
Sinha was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1996 and again in 1999. He has been a member of the BJP national council as well from 1989 to 1996. He was elected to the Lower House for a third term when the BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
However, ahead of joining active politics, he was a member of the General Council, School of Planning during 1999-2000. He was also a member of the Committee on Energy and another Committee on Government Assurances.
Sinha, a Bhumihar (upper caste), has been actively working for the upliftment of the backward villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Apart from being a social worker, travelling has been his other passion.