'Giant killer' Parvesh Verma: The Jat face of Delhi cabinet

3 Minutes Read Listen to Article
Share:

February 20, 2025 17:45 IST

x

Bharatiya Janata Party's Parvesh Verma first rose in national politics in 2014 when he won the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat but his profile took a leap when he emerged as the giant killer in the Delhi assembly polls after defeating Aam Aadmi Party supremo and three-time chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

IMAGE: BJP MLA Parvesh Verma greets Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of taking oath as a minister in Delhi cabinet, at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi on Thursday. Photograph: Shrikant Singh/ANI Photo

The 47-year-old Verma was a prominent Jat face of the party in the February 5 polls and was considered the frontrunner for the post of chief minister which eventually went to first-time MLA Rekha Gupta.

Verma was inducted as a minister in the Delhi cabinet.

Verma, a son of former chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, has the reputation of a firebrand leader who publicly declared himself as Kejriwal's rival in the New Delhi seat held by the former Delhi CM for three terms.

 

By setting himself up for possibly the biggest challenge of the assembly polls, Verma mirrored what Kejriwal had done in 2013 when the AAP chief pitched himself against another three-time CM Sheila Dikshit from the New Delhi constituency.

While he defeated Kejriwal by a margin of around 4,000 votes, he has the distinction of winning with record margins in the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019.

Verma holds an MBA degree from the Fore School of Management and has also been involved in social work through Rashtriya Swabhiman, a non-profit organisation founded by his father.

Born on November 7, 1977, in Delhi, he showed interest in politics since childhood and joined the RSS as a Bal Swayamsewak in 1991.

Verma joined the BJP Yuva Morcha later, became a member of its national executive and then worked as the general secretary of BJP's Delhi unit.

He first became an MLA from Mehrauli in 2013 before securing consecutive victories from the West Delhi Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 2019.

He has the highest victory margins for any leader who has contested the parliamentary polls in Delhi. In 2019, he had a whopping margin of over 5.78 lakh votes.

According to his election affidavit, Verma has movable assets worth Rs 77.89 crore and immovable assets valued at Rs 12.19 crore. His wife owns movable assets worth Rs 17.53 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 6.91 crore.

His non-profit Rashtriya Swabhiman has provided an honorarium of Rs 1 lakh each to the kin of Kargil war martyrs, helped in the resettlement of two villages affected by the earthquake in Gujarat, and carried out rehabilitation work in three villages in Odisha hit by cyclone.

Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Share: