BJP’s Anil Baluni along with Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and BJP state president Ajay Bhatt. (ANI)
Head of BJP’s national media department, Anil Baluni (47), was, on Thursday, declared elected to the Rajya Sabha seat from Uttarakhand that is to be vacated by Congress MP Mahendra Singh Mahra.
Baluni being the choice of the BJP, which has 56 MLAs in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, was the only candidate to have filed the nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha seat from Uttarakhand. On Thursday he was handed the declaration certificate by Returning Officer Madan Singh Kunjwal.
Speaking to The Indian Express after filing the nomination papers on March 12, Baluni had said, “As an MP from Uttarakhand I will be able to serve my state, as well as my party. Also, my association with the party’s central leadership will help bridge the state-centre gap.”
Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat, on Thursday, said, “Baluni ji’s presence in the Rajya Sabha will benefit Uttarakhand as he (being a native of the state) will be able to take the state’s issues to the Rajya Sabha.”
Baluni, who is known to have close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and BJP president Amit Shah, was appointed as BJP’s national spokesperson in 2014, and the head of its national media department in 2017.
Baluni, who is from Nakot village in Uttarakhand’s Pauri district, had contested the state assembly election from the Kotdwar seat in 2002, which he lost.
Baluni got associated with the RSS while working in New Delhi as a journalist in the 1990s. He served as the OSD (officer on special duty) of Sunder Singh Bhandari, when Bhandari, a BJP veteran who had close links with the RSS, was Bihar’s Governor in 1998-1999, and when he was Gujarat’s Governor from 1999-2003.
He served as the deputy chairman of Uttarakhand forest and environment advisory committee from 2010-2012.