Deendayal Upadhyaya
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Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya |
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|---|---|
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| President of Bharatiya Jana Sangh | |
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In office 1967–1968 |
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| Preceded by | Balraj Madhok |
| Succeeded by | Atal Bihari Vajpayee |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
25 September 1916 Mathura district, United Provinces, British India |
| Died | 11 February 1968 (aged 51) Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Political party | Bharatiya Jana Sangh |
| Alma mater | Birla Institute of Technology and Science |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Religion | Hinduism |
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay (25 September 1916 – 11 February 1968) was an Indian politician. He was one of the most important leaders of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of the present day Bharatiya Janata Party.
He was born in 1916 in the village Chandrabhan, now called Deendayal Dham, near the Farah town in Mathura District, 26 km away from Mathura. His father, Bhagwati Prasad, was a well known astrologer and his mother Shrimati Rampyari was a religious-minded lady. Both his parents died when he was young and he was brought up by his maternal uncle. He excelled academically under the guardianship of his maternal uncle and aunt. He went to high school in Sikar, Rajasthan where he matriculated. He stood first in the board exam, obtaining a Gold Medal from Maharaja Kalyan Singh of Sikar, along with a monthly scholarship of 10 rupees and an additional 250 rupees towards his books. He did Intermediate at the Birla College in Pilani, the predecessor of the present Birla Institute of Technology and Science. He did his B. A. at the Sanatan Dharma College, Kanpur in 1939 and graduated in the first division. He joined St. John's College, Agra to pursue a master's degree in English literature and got a gold medal. His maternal uncle persuaded him to appear for the Provincial Services Exam, where he got selected but declined to join the Services on account of his political ambitions. He obtained a B.Ed and M.Ed degrees at Prayag and entered public service.
While he was a student at Sanatan College, Kanpur in 1937, he came into contact with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) through his classmate Baluji Mahashabde. He met the founder of the RSS, K. B. Hedgewar, who engaged with him in an intellectual discussion at one of the shakhas. Sunder Singh Bhandari was also one of his classmates at Kanpur. He dedicated himself to full-time work in the RSS from 1942. He had attended the 40-day summer vacation RSS camp at Nagpur where he underwent training in Sangh Education. After completing second-year training in the RSS Education Wing, Upadhyaya became a lifelong pracharak of the RSS. He worked as the pracharak for the Lakhimpur district and, from 1955, as the joint prant pracharak (regional organiser) for Uttar Pradesh. He was regarded as an ideal swayamsevak of the RSS essentially because ‘his discourse reflected the pure thought-current of the Sangh’.
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