SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta on Monday replaced Nirmal Singh as Deputy Chief Minister in the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government. In the major cabinet reshuffle, seven others were also sworn in as ministers in the state government.

  • Kavinder Gupta, 58, first stepped into an RSS 'shakha' when in his early teens and for decades has been an active political worker.

  • Kavinder Gupta has even spent 13 months in jail during the emergency.

  • Born December 2nd, 1959, Gupta is a graduate, who has three children including two daughters.

  • He was secretary of the Punjab Vishav Hindu Parishad in 1978-79.

  • He headed the J&K unit of the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, for two consecutive terms from 1993 till 1998.

  • Gupta has also served as the mayor of Jammu for three terms consecutively from 2005 to 2010, which is a record.

  • He has also been a general secretary of the BJP's state unit.

  • He was elected as an MLA for the first time in 2014 from the Gandhi Nagar seat where he defeated a sitting Congress minister Raman Bhalla.

  • Gupta was soon unanimously elected as the Speaker of the J&K Assembly.

  • He is known for his work for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden sections of the society as well as efforts to eradicate social evils.


(With inputs from PTI)