<p>Bengaluru: In the winter of 2013, BJP was preparing to hold elections for the post of national president. Nitin Gadkari, the incumbent, faced covert and overt challenges within the organization.</p>.<p>Early January, the man chosen to conduct elections got a call from a senior BJP leader from the anti-Gadkari camp. The legal luminary who would later become a Rajya Sabha MP sought a copy of the voters’ list for the presidential polls.</p>.<p>Despite being politely told of the process, when the person on the other side persisted with his arguments, Thaawarchand Gehlot did not hesitate in ticking off the top-notch lawyer: “You may be a senior advocate, but I also know the law,” Gehlot said and disconnected the phone.</p>.<p>Born in a humble background in Madhya Pradesh a year after Independence, Gehlot, despite maintaining a low profile has remained a stickler to rules, and somebody who has understood and delivered on his mandate.</p>.<p>Initiated into public life by the RSS, he worked closely with Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the trade union wing of the RSS.</p>.Governors and their contentious conduct.<p>Jailed during the Emergency for a year under MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), Gehlot, in his interactions with journalists when he was a national office bearer in Delhi, would often recollect the tough time faced by his family when he was incarcerated.</p>.<p>When the BJP was formed after the rupture of the Janata Parivar in 1980, Gehlot got an opportunity to contest the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, which he won. He remained a member of the MP Assembly for four terms. In 1996, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Shajapur in MP and went on to win three more elections to the lower house of Parliament.</p>.<p>Gehlot has worked closely with generations of top BJP leaders from Vajpayee and Advani to Narendra Modi. He was nominated to the party parliamentary board, the top decision-making body of the BJP, and also to the central election committee.</p>.<p>He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 2012, and later went on to serve as minister for social justice and empowerment in the Modi government. He succeeded Arun Jaitley as leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha.</p>.<p>In July 2021, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mid-way into this second term in office effected a Cabinet reshuffle accompanied by an organizational rejig, Gehlot was appointed Governor of Karnataka.</p>.<p>With Assembly elections just two years away in Karnataka, the BJP, bracing for a tough contest against the Congress, had decided to send its social justice minister to the Raj Bhavan (now called Lok Bhavan) in Bangaluru as Siddaramaiah and team had assembled their Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) juggernaut. </p>
<p>Bengaluru: In the winter of 2013, BJP was preparing to hold elections for the post of national president. Nitin Gadkari, the incumbent, faced covert and overt challenges within the organization.</p>.<p>Early January, the man chosen to conduct elections got a call from a senior BJP leader from the anti-Gadkari camp. The legal luminary who would later become a Rajya Sabha MP sought a copy of the voters’ list for the presidential polls.</p>.<p>Despite being politely told of the process, when the person on the other side persisted with his arguments, Thaawarchand Gehlot did not hesitate in ticking off the top-notch lawyer: “You may be a senior advocate, but I also know the law,” Gehlot said and disconnected the phone.</p>.<p>Born in a humble background in Madhya Pradesh a year after Independence, Gehlot, despite maintaining a low profile has remained a stickler to rules, and somebody who has understood and delivered on his mandate.</p>.<p>Initiated into public life by the RSS, he worked closely with Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the trade union wing of the RSS.</p>.Governors and their contentious conduct.<p>Jailed during the Emergency for a year under MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), Gehlot, in his interactions with journalists when he was a national office bearer in Delhi, would often recollect the tough time faced by his family when he was incarcerated.</p>.<p>When the BJP was formed after the rupture of the Janata Parivar in 1980, Gehlot got an opportunity to contest the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, which he won. He remained a member of the MP Assembly for four terms. In 1996, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Shajapur in MP and went on to win three more elections to the lower house of Parliament.</p>.<p>Gehlot has worked closely with generations of top BJP leaders from Vajpayee and Advani to Narendra Modi. He was nominated to the party parliamentary board, the top decision-making body of the BJP, and also to the central election committee.</p>.<p>He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 2012, and later went on to serve as minister for social justice and empowerment in the Modi government. He succeeded Arun Jaitley as leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha.</p>.<p>In July 2021, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mid-way into this second term in office effected a Cabinet reshuffle accompanied by an organizational rejig, Gehlot was appointed Governor of Karnataka.</p>.<p>With Assembly elections just two years away in Karnataka, the BJP, bracing for a tough contest against the Congress, had decided to send its social justice minister to the Raj Bhavan (now called Lok Bhavan) in Bangaluru as Siddaramaiah and team had assembled their Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) juggernaut. </p>
