He was born in Hisawada, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, to a very poor family. |
At a young age, he entered politics and rose from a student socialist leader to the Vice President of BJP. |
In 1968, he took part in the World Youth Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria. |
He was a student leader at Meerut College and later became an MLA from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh. |
In 1984, he switched to Congress, serving as its Rajya Sabha MP briefly before leaving due to the Bofors Scam. |
He joined Janata Dal in 1988 and won as an MP from Aligarh in 1989. |
In VP Singh's cabinet, he became the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism. |
He joined BJP in 2004 and contested but lost the Lok Sabha election. |
In 2014, he was appointed as one of the 11 Vice Presidents of BJP by Amit Shah. |
In September 2017, he became the Governor of Bihar and served until August 2018. |
He took on the additional charge as the Governor of Odisha from March to May 2018. |
In August 2018, he was appointed as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir by President Ram Nath Kovind. |