Harish Rawat: Congress leader from Uttarakhand

Rawat was sworn in as chief minister of Uttarakhand after Vijay Bahuguna resigned. Bahuguna was criticised for not handling the rehabilitation programme in the state after June 2013 floods.

Rawat is a leader of the Indian National Congress and he is the chief minister of Uttarakhand since 2016. He was the CM of Uttarakhand in the past also from 2014 to 2016. He has been elected to Parliament five times.

Date of birth: April 27, 1948.

Family: He was born in Mohanari village in Almora district of the United Provinces in a Rajput family to Rajendra Singh Rawat and Devki Devi. Rawat is married to fellow Congress member Renuka Rawat.

Education: He has two degrees, Bachelor of Arts and LL.B. from Lucknow University.

Political career:

Rawat had begun his career at village level politics. He had also worked as a trade unionist and he was member of Indian Youth Congress for many years. He has also headed Congress Volunteer Wing and Congress Seva Dal since 1980.

He was first elected to Lok Sabha in the year 1980. He had won his seat in the seventh Lok Sabha by defeating BJP's leader Murli Manohar Joshi. Rawat had contested from Almora parliamentary constituency.

He also got elected to the eighth and the ninth Lok Sabha. He was also elected to the 15th Lok Sabha and was made union minister of water resources by then prime minister Manmohan Singh. He had contested from Haridwar and won with over 3 lakh votes.

Rawat has also hold the portfolios of minister of state of parliamentary affairs, minister of agriculture, minister of food processing industries and minister of labour and employment.

In 2000 he was unanimously elected as President of Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee.

In 2002 he was elected as member of Rajya Sabha.

The last election that he contested was by-election from Dharchula assembly seat which he won by over 19000 votes.

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