Rao Inderjit Singh: Former shooter now MoS (Independent Charge) of Statistics and Programme ministry, also gets Planning

Rao Inderjit Singh is the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; and Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Planning in the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Inderjit was the Minister of State in the Government of India under Modi in the 16th Lok Sabha led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) helmed NDA. As a BJP MP, he represents the Gurgaon constituency in Haryana, having been re-elected in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election winning 8,81,546 votes.

He has earlier served as Cabinet Minister for the Environment, as Minister of State for External Affairs, and as Minister of State for Defence Production. Since 2009, he has also chaired the Parliamentary Information technology committee.

Inderjit, a law student of Delhi University, is the son of Rao Birendra Singh, who served as the second chief minister of Haryana. He is descendant of Raja Rao Tula Ram, a freedom fighter of India’s first war of independence in 1857.

He was an MLA in the Haryana Assembly for four terms, beginning in 1977. From 1982 to 1987 he was a provincial Minister of State responsible for Food and civil supplies. He was then elected to the Lok Sabha as a Member of Parliament in 1998, serving in the parliaments of 1998-1999, 2000–2004, and 2004–2009. Thereafter, from 1991 to 1996 he served as Cabinet minister for the Environment, Forest, Medical and Technical Education, and then as Minister of State for External Affairs (2004–2006) and as Minister of State for Defence Production from 2006 to 2009.

Inderjit, who was earlier a part of the Indian National Congress (INC) had a run-in with the then chief minister  Bhupinder Singh Hooda as he accused him of developing his own constituency Rohtak at the cost of other parts of the state. He had openly turned against Congress by demanding “a thorough probe” into the land deals of Robert Vadra, party chief Sonia Gandhi`s son-in-law. Inderjit quit the party in 2013 .

Meanwhile, he has been hailed for seeking an AIIMS in Rewari , a district in his Lok Sabha constituency, to improve the quality of health care in south Haryana. The Centre accepted his demand and announced an AIIMS to be set up at Manethi village in Rewari in the Union budget on 1 February.

Interestingly, Inderjit was a member of the Indian shooting Team from 1990 to 2003 and won a Bronze Medal at the Commonwealth Shooting Championship. He was also a National Champion in Skeet for three consecutive years and won three gold medals in the SAF Games.