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NDA’s Harivansh Narayan Singh Elected Rajya Sabha‘s DY Chairman Jolting Congress Led Opposition

NDA Candidate Harivansh Narayan Singh has been elected Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman with 125 votes. Harivansh Narayan Singh ,a journalist , was associated  with  JP and former  Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar. He represents Bihar’s ruling party Janata Dal United. On Wednesday, he defeated UPA’s BK Hariprasad from Karnataka .He bagged 125 votes. Following Singh’s win, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated him in the House. There was vacancy for the post of Deputy Chair following retirement of P J Kurien on July 1, 2018.He is considered part of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s think tank. Kumar personally  campaigned  for  him and convinced his Odisha counterpart Biju Patnaik about  electing  him as Deputy Chairman of the Upper House .Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and  BJP President  Amit Shah also  requested  Patnaik to instruct  his Rajya Sabha  MPs to cast their  votes in favour of Harivansh Singh . PM Modi, who is a Member of the Lok Sabha, was present during voting, walked up to Singh to congratulate him after the process was complete. PM Modi said the newly elected RS  Deputy Chair had earlier run a column on how the parliamentarians of the country should work.” Little did he know that he will one day be the Deputy Chairperson of the House. We all will benefit from his experience.”  Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress MP  Ghulam Nabi Azad also complimented Harivansh Singh. Union Minister Arun Jaitley, Leader of the Rajya Sabha made his first public appearance in three months today as he entered the Parliament complex for the election. The Indian Express   says “Known to keep a low profile, Harivansh has the ear of Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar, but would try not to let anybody sense it”. He is the first JD(U) MP who has been picked up by  the BJP led  NDA dispensation for an assignment  at the Centre ..Harivansh Narayan Singh hails from Sitab Diara village in Saran district which is also the native village of legendary Jayaprakash Narayan. He was influenced by the JP movement, he says. A village boy whose farming family lost agricultural land to erosion due to the change in Ganga’s course, Harivansh completed his post graduation in Economics and started a career with Hindi weekly Dharmyug in the 1980s. He later became an officer with Bank of India. While his family wanted him to continue with the job, Harivansh soon switched back to journalism, joining Ravivar magazine. “But the journalism of metropolitan cities did not look challenging and I preferred to do journalism in a small town,” said Harivansh. He joined Prabhat Khabar in Ranchi in 1989 and rose to become its editor-in-chief. He quit the position when he became a Rajya Sabha member in 2014.Harivansh Singh was handpicked by Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar as his political adviser. Harivansh had quit as chief editor of Prabhat Khabar to take up the position and later returned to the newspaper after Congress withdrew support from the government. After getting elected to the Rajya Sabha , he has adopted a village that was not related to even his distant relatives and does not have any political significance. He eventually decided on Bahuaara village in Rohtas district of Bihar.

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