Narendra Singh Tomar: The Chief Ministerial Contender In Madhya Pradesh? (Image:Facebook/NarendraSinghTomar)
Narendra Singh Tomar or Munna Bhaiya, as called by the senior BJP leader Babulal Gaur, is a veteran Indian politician who hails from the soil of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Being associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr Tomar is another national leader fielded by the party to the 2023 state legislative assembly elections. He currently serves as the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in the second cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and is one among the seven MP’s and three Union Ministers contesting the state polls this year from BJP.
Madhya Pradesh went polling on November 17 and the votes, according to the Central Election Commission will be counted and the results will be declared on December 3, 2023. Narendra Singh Tomar contested from the Dimni assembly constituency, which is part of the Morena district. The election to this seat becomes more interesting as Tomar is seen as a strong contender for the chief minister’s post. The constituency is currently under the ticket of Indian National Congress (INC) where Ravindra Singh Tomar Bhidosa hold the office.
Narendra Singh Tomar was born on May 30, 2019, in the Morar village in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh to Munshi Singh Tomar and Sharda Devi Tomar. He was part of a Rajput family, who covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood. Mr Tomar was a graduate from the Jiwaji University in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior and was married to Kiran Tomar. The couple had two sons and a daughter.
Mr Tomar won the Madhya Pradesh legislative assembly elections from Gwalior in 1998 and held the seat for the next ten years until 2008. He was a cabinet minister of the state from 2003 to 2008. During the period, he held the offices of Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (2003-2007), Public Relations (2005-2007), Fisheries (2003-2004), and Animal Husbandry (2003-2004). It was in 2006, Mr Tomar became the President of BJP in Madhya Pradesh and held the position till 2010.
In 2009 he rose to the Rajya Sabha as an MP from Madhya Pradesh and faced election in the same year, in which he won from the Morena Lok Sabha Constituency and became a part of the Fifteenth Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014. He faced election from Gwalior in 2014 and was part of the Sixteenth Lok Sabha and second PM Modi ministry, till 2019. During the tenure and the next from 2019, he held the cabinet for various departments: Labour and Employment (2014), Mines (2014-2016, 2017-2019), Steel (2014-2016), Drinking Water and Sanitation (2016-2017), Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (2016-2021), Housing and Urban Affairs (2017), Parliamentary Affairs (2018-2019), Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare (2019-Present), and Food Processing Industries (2020-2021).
The expertise of Narendra Singh Tomar is unparalleled as he handled multiple Union ministries during different periods of the First and Second Modi ministry. He was chosen by BJP this time, as they expect a clear victory in the state of Madhya Pradesh and are eagerly looking for regaining the Congress occupied Dimni legislative assembly seat. In the 2018 assembly polls, Girraj Dandotiya won from Dimni by a margin of over 18,000 votes. He later switched over to the BJP and contested the 2020 bypoll from the seat on the saffron party”s ticket, but lost to Congress candidate Ravindra Singh Tomar Bhidosa.
