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Who is Jayant Chaudhary?
Jayant Chaudhary is the grandson of India’s fifth Prime Minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh and son of former Union minister Ajit Singh. Currently, he is the president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and a Rajya Sabha MP.
In 2024 LS polls, Jayant-led RLD was part of the NDA coalition and his party won 2 seats in Uttar Pradesh. After the declaration of the results, Jayant was inducted as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
Jayant has been critical of the 1894 land acquisition law and the large-scale land acquisitions in UP. He has been a part of the agitations to protest the unfair acquisition of land in the state and in the Mathura, Noida, Hathras, Greater Noida, Agra and Aligarh districts.
Life and education
Life and education
The Indian politician was born on December 27, 1978, in Dallas, USA. His father Ajit Singh had served as Union minister and was a multiple-time parliamentarian.
Jayant Chaudhary, a former Lok Sabha MP, graduated from Shri Venkateswara College of the Delhi University and in 2002 received a master's degree in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Jayant started heading the RLD after the death of Ajit Singh in 2021 due to Covid-19 infection.
Jayant is married to Charu Singh and the couple has two children.
Career
Jayant Chaudhary was a member of the Parliament from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh in the 15th Lok Sabha. The RLD leader introduced a Private Member’s Bill on Land Acquisition in the Lok Sabha on August 5, 2011.
He also proposed a Private Member’s bill to amend the Right To Information Act to increase the applicability of the act to include PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships) for greater transparency.
Chaudhary contested from Mathura in the 2014 general elections, however, he lost to BJP candidate Hema Malini.
In the 2019 LS polls, Jayant lost by a slim margin of 23,000 votes from Baghpat to BJP's Satya Pal Singh.
However, in the 2024 LS polls, Jayant decided not to field himself from any seat.
He continues to remain a Rajya Sabha MP to which he was elected in July 2022 with the support of Samajwadi Party.
During his first term in the Lok Sabha, the RLD chief was a member of various Parliamentary Committees; the Standing Committees on Commerce, Agriculture and Finance, the Consultative Committee on Finance, the Committee on Ethics, and the Committee on Government Assurances.
He has been a member of the General Board of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Chaudhary has also co-chaired the FICCI Indo-British Forum of Parliamentarians and was a member of the Indo-Venezuela Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Moreover, Jayant Chaudhary serves as the Chairman of the Kisan Trust founded by former PM, late Chaudhary Charan Singh in 1978.