Congress's Revanth Reddy has praise for this old RSS hand: Who is ‘Ajatshatru' Bandaru Dattatreya
Similar sentiments were expressed on the occasion by several dignitaries and leaders cutting across party lines, including ex-President Ram Nath Kovind, former Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, with Kovind describing Dattatreya as a 'rare leader' who has been a 'friend to all'.
The 77-year-old Other Backward Class (OBC) leader, Dattatreya, who hails from Hyderabad, started his public life in 1965 when he joined the RSS, the BJP's ideological fountainhead. He was appointed as an RSS pracharak in 1968. He continued to hold various positions within the Sangh and its affiliated outfits till 1979, when he was Seva Bharati's pramukh, before joining the BJP.
'Dattatreya had been one of the BJP leaders since its inception. In 1980, he was posted as the BJP secretary in undivided Andhra Pradesh,' one of his close aides told The Indian Express.
In Hyderabad, Dattatreya was known as a BJP leader who used to attend even the smallest of public functions. 'It was not easy to work as a BJP leader then and get the support of people who belonged to various parties back in the 1980s. He undertook this connect with people like a personal mission and succeeded in it to the surprise of many,' a Congress leader said.
Dattatreya held different positions in the Andhra Pradesh BJP, including its general secretary from 1981 to 1989. In 1991, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from the Secunderabad constituency (in Telangana now). He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha four times from Secunderabad from 1991 to 2014, even though he also suffered losses a few times. 'It was not easy to win over such a long period in Secunderabad as a BJP candidate then. It showed the public trust he enjoyed over the years,' Dattatreya's aide said.
The BJP first named Dattatreya as the Andhra Pradesh party unit president in 1996. He again served as the state party chief from 2006 to 2009. Besides, he also played various roles in the party at the central level – from being the party's national secretary to its national executive member and national vice president.
He also served as the Union minister of state (MoS) in the governments led by both Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. In the Modi ministry 1.0, he was the MoS (independent charge) of labour and employment from November 2014 to September 2017. During this period he worked closely with various labour unions in the country for the welfare and uplift of workers in both organised and unorganised sectors, his aide said.
In his autobiography, Dattatreya states, 'One of the significant strides made during my tenure (as MoS, labour) in 2015 was the substantial increase in minimum wages across both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.'
In 2014, he also served as the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on welfare of the backward classes.
A political observer close to Dattatreya told The Indian Express that his elevation in the BJP ranks could be attributed to his proximity to the RSS. 'His rise in the BJP was completely driven by his deep-rooted connection to the RSS. Without the RSS' backing Dattatreya would not have made it to the Union MoS's position'.
In his long political innings, Dattatreya has however also faced several controversies. He was booked as one of the prime accused in a case of abetment of suicide of University of Hyderabad (UoH)'s PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. Months before Vemula's death by suicide in January 2016, Dattatreya was accused of having written a letter to then Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani to seek action against some UoH students including Vemula for their alleged 'casteist, extremist and anti-national' activities.
Vemula, who identified as a Dalit, had written a suicide note in which he said, 'My birth is my fatal accident', which found resonance across the country as a searing indictment of the country's caste reality.
The Hyderabad police however filed a closure report in the case in 2024, claiming that Vemula was not a Dalit and that 'external pressures' did not lead to his suicide. It gave a clean chit to Dattatreya and other accused.
Vemula's suicide sparked nationwide protests against the discrimination of Dalit students in educational institutions. Dattatreya had denied any wrongdoing in the matter. 'The BJP did not remove him from his MoS position during this entire episode,' noted a student leader from the UoH.
In the Modi government 2.0, Dattatreya was sent to Himachal Pradesh as the Governor. In 2021, he was named the Haryana Governor, a post that he still holds.
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