Murli Manohar Joshi

Some Lesser Known Facts About Murli Manohar Joshi

• He became the member of RSS at quite a young age and participated in the Cow Protection Movement during 1953-54 which demanded to split the land revenue assessment.

• Joshi is PhD in Spectroscopy and has published a research paper relating to physics in the Hindi language. He started teaching Physics at Allahabad University after completing his Doctorate.

• Dr Joshi was behind the bars during Emergency in India which lasted for about 2 years. He was sent to jail in June 1975 and was released before 1977 Lok Sabha elections.

• Murli got linked to the Janta Party, which in 1977 was elected to power, the first non-congress government in the Republic of India. Joshi was elected as an MP from Almora at that time. However, the government did not last for the desired term and dissolved in 1980 resulting in the formation of a new political party, Bhartiya Janata Party. He then moved to the new wing and was made the General Secretary of the party, and in a short while, he became the party treasurer.

• Dr Joshi has served as BJP’s president between 1991 and 93.

• He served as the Home Minister of India for 13 odd days under the Prime Ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1996.

• Joshi remained a three-term MP from Almora before he tasted a defeat in 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

• Murli was sidelined from his constituency (Varanasi) in 2014, the seat from which Narendra Modi fought the Lok Sabha elections. He later went on to contest from Kanpur constituency and had got a marginal victory after defeating Sriprakash Jaiswal by 2.23 lakh votes.

• He along with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar has been conferred Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award in India, in January 2017.