Member of Legislative Assembly

My father, my inspiration

I was just 10, not quite aware of what partition had brought for so many families. But what I learned from my surroundings was really disturbing. Along with my five brothers and three sisters, I saw my father unhappy with what was happening in the country, but could not do much.

Empathising with him, my mother too joined the freedom fight. She’d help him serving the needy, irrespective of castes and religions; even at the time of partition she was helping the Muslims, and said that inevitable problems can always be solved by joining, not dividing, the forces.

My early education began from Guru Nanak High School, GTB Nagar, Bombay, but because I was very much inspired by my father, I became a social worker rather young; in fact, I didn’t attend school after grade 8 and joined politics to serve the masses on a large scale.

Every morning, I woke up early, fed the birds in the lawn and then spent the entire day with my father, following him everywhere he would go to meet and serve people. My father also had some shops and a hotel. At times, he also taught me business and farming. All the time I spent with him in those early years of life was full of knowledge.

On 1 May 1972, I was married to Sardarni Harsharan Kaur, a simple lady from Bombay who always stands by me. However, the year 1973 puzzled me. On one hand, we were expecting our first child, on the other, my father embraced the almighty. Celebration turned into mourning. I had learnt so much in life from him while watching him. I was inspired to dedicate and commit myself to the welfare of the society. Could I have let go of his dream of helping people? Harsharan also motivated and stood by me and I fought my first election for Janata party.

A month later, while my family was still mourning and I hadn’t yet got hold of a very strong footing in politics, my son was born in December 1973; we christened him Rajneet (aka Joney) after rajneeti1.

In 1980, the Janata Party was renamed Bharatiya Janata Party. The same year, when I noticed Bhandup, where poor working class people lived in slums and shanties without any proper civic amenities and developments, I decided to bring them some relief and solved their many civic problems.

Soon, in 1984, I was elected to the post of Municipal Councillor from Bhandup. During the same time, anti-Sikh riots took place in response to the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard. According to the government, about 2,800 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and 3,350 nationwide. But in Bombay, every Sikh was safe. I personally went to meet Bal Keshav Thackeray, the founder of the organisation, Shiv Sena, who promised me the safety of Sikh community in Maharashtra.

In 1986, on a very good friend, Pramod Mahajan’s advice I became the chairman of the standing committee in BMC. I was the first and the last person to have held that position, neither before nor after that was any person nominated for the position.

I retained my seat as a corporator for almost 20 years. Since then I have tried to transform the area with my dedication and hard work into a highly developed suburb of Mumbai. My services resulted in immense popularity and in my third election, I defeated 20 of my rivals from all the major parties with the highest margin of votes.

As a Corporator, I held many important posts in the BMC such as Chairman – Improvement Committee, Standing Committee, Mayor in Council – Health Department, etc, and was BJP’s group leader in the BMC for five years. While in BMC, I always raised my voice against corruption, unearthed and exposed many big scandals.

In 1999, with a thumping majority of votes, I became MLA from Mulund Assembly Constituency defeating my nearest rival Congress candidate. In my first term as an MLA Mulund, I was engaged in a lot of development works for the people of Mulund Assembly Constituency, which resulted in creating history by winning Mulund Assembly seat again in 2004 on BJP ticket with a huge margin of votes.

Since then, I have worked in various areas for the betterment of my fellow people, from constructing a mini flyover on the highway to skywalks to connect Mulund East and West, to creating a huge Ganpati Visarjan Talav and constructing a beautiful garden around it that benefits lakhs of devotees and citizens of Mulund.

Looking at the population of our country, I have always believed quite a lot of our talent is hidden in poverty and rural parts of the country, away from education and exposure. Along with donating land for an educational complex near Shivaji Talao, Bhandup, I have also been instrumental in its construction too. At present, many educational institutions like Parag Vidyalaya, Sahyadri Vidyalaya, Malayali School, Guru Nanak School including a BEd college are functioning here. I have also got my education society under its auspices; SPS Janata Vidyalaya (now Daffodils High Public School) is being run in the same complex.