Shri Bhupinder Singh Hooda
Bhupinder Singh Hooda (born 15 September 1947) is an Indian National Congress politician who is the current Leader of the Opposition in Haryana Legislative Assembly. He also served as the Chief Minister of Haryana from 2005 to 2014.
When he began a second term in October 2009 after leading the Congress to an election victory, it was the first time since 1972 that a Haryana electorate returned a ruling party back to power. Hooda is also a Member of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana. In 2010, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted the Working Group on Agriculture Production under Hooda’s chairmanship to recommend strategies and action plan for increasing agricultural production and productivity, including long-term policies to ensure sustained agricultural growth.
Early life
Bhupinder Singh Hooda was born to Chaudhary Ranbir Singh Hooda and Har Devi Hooda in Sanghi village in Rohtak district of Haryana. His father, Ranbir Singh Hooda, was a renowned freedom fighter.
He is an alumnus of Sainik School, Balachadi, Jamnagar, Gujarat. He did his B.A. at Panjab University, Chandigarh, after which he pursued law from the prestigious Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. He started his political career at Youth Congress.
Political career
Chaudhry Bhupinder Singh Hooda was elected as a member of parliament from Rohtak Lok Sabha segment for four terms in 1991, 1996, 1998, 2004. He also remained the Leader of Opposition in Haryana Legislative Assembly from 2001 to 2004. He also served as the President of HPCC (Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee) from 1996 to 2001. In three consecutive Lok Sabha elections of (1991 96 and 98), he defeated Ch. Devi Lal in electoral battles fought in the Jat heartland of Rohtak in Haryana. He attended international conferences like the World Youth Festival in the USSR, the World Parliamentary Conference in China, the International Conference in USSR as a delegate of AICC and OISCA, and international conferences in Japan and South Korea. Hooda was a vocal supporter of structural reforms within the Congress party and a member of the G23 rebel leaders group. He has been meeting with party senior leaders and other G23 leaders to bring about reconciliation.
He is also President, All India Young Farmers’ Association, Haryana; Ex-Member, Market Committee, Rohtak; Director, Bank of India, 1989–92; Secretary, Farmers’ Parliamentary Forum, 1991 onwards; Founder-Member and Working President of All India Freedom Fighters’ Successors’ Organisation; Working President, National Federation Railway Porters, Vendors, and Bearers. Elected as President for the Khadi & Village Industries Commission Employees Union & Patron for the National Khadi & Village Industries Board’s Employees Federation, an apex body of all State K&V.I. Board’s Employees Unions,.
To encourage youngsters to pick up Olympic sports, Hooda announced a cash award of Rs 25 million for the state athletes who would win gold medal in any discipline at the London Games. Cash prize money of Rs 15 million and Rs 10 million for silver and bronze medal winners has also been announced. Hooda has come under the scanner of the CBI for alleged misappropriation of funds and scams. In 2019, CBI’s preliminary inquiry (PE) has revealed that Hooda and TC Gupta, a 1987 batch IAS officer and the then head of the town and planning department, allegedly hatched a criminal conspiracy with private builders to deliberately notify huge chunks of land in various sectors of Gurgaon for acquisition for public purposes. This led to the landowners selling their lands at throwaway prices to private builders. But the government ended up actually acquiring only a small proportion of these notified land tracts.
