Venkaiah Naidu, the current Vice President of India, celebrates his 73rd birthday today. Born in 1949 in Chavatapalem village of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, Naidu became the 13th Vice President of the country in 2017. He is going to vacate the office in August.
Before becoming the Vice President, Naidu had a spectacular journey as a politician and he is one of the highly respected public figures in the country.
He finished his graduation in law from the Andhra University College of Law, Visakhapatnam. He soon after joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He was also the president of the Janta Party Youth Wing in Andhra Pradesh from 1977-1980. It was during the Emergency that Naidu hogged limelight for his political activism against the then Congress-led Central government and even got arrested. Immediately after the Emergency, Naidu was elected to the state assembly in 1978, a position he maintained till 1985.
After the Bharatiya Janata Party was formed in 1980, he was soon elevated to the position of Youth Wing Vice President, and then soon after state general secretary, state unit chief, and BJP Legislature Party leader. Naidu was the BJP’s General Secretary from 1993-2000 and also served as its spokesperson.
After the victory of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance in 1999, he served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Rural Development in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Naidu also succeeded Jana Krishnamurthi as the BJP President in 2003 and was then elected unopposed to a full three-year term. But, Naidu resigned in 2004, after the defeat of the NDA in the general elections.
However, he continued to hold office as one of its vice-presidents. Naidu also had three consecutive terms in the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka from 1998 to 2016, before he shifted to Rajasthan for the fourth term.
After the victory of the NDA government in 2014, Naidu was given the portfolio of Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs and then the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in 2016. Naidu resigned from both positions in 2017 in order to serve as the Vice President, securing 516 votes against the Opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who received 244 votes.
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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
First Published: Jul 1, 2022 6:07 AM IST
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