Harsh Vardhan (born Harshvardhan Goel, 13 December 1954) is an Indian otorhinolaryngologist. He had served as the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Earth Sciences in the

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mo ...

-led NDA government of Prime Minister

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...

from 30 May 2019 to 7 July 2021. He represents

Chandni Chowk The Chandni Chowk, also known as Moonlight Square is one of the oldest and busiest markets in Old Delhi, India. It is located close to the Old Delhi Railway Station. The Red Fort monument is located at the eastern end of Chandni Chowk. It was b ...

in Delhi as a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

in the

17th Lok Sabha The 17th Lok Sabha was formed by the members elected in the 2019 Indian general election. Elections, all across India, were conducted in seven phases from 11 April 2019 to 19 May 2019 by the Election Commission of India. Counting started off ...

. He was elected to the office of Chairperson of Executive Board of the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

from May 22, 2020. Vardhan has been prominent in the Indian government's response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. He later resigned from his cabinet post ahead of the cabinet reshuffle in July 2021.

As MP Chandni Chowk

He was elected as MP of

in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He was again elected as MP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.br>

Early life

Harsh Vardhan was born in Delhi to Om Prakash Goel and Sneh Lata Goel. Vardhan finished his schooling from Happy School, Daryaganj, in 1971. He attended Zakir Husain Delhi College of the University of Delhi and Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College of the

Kanpur University Aerial view of Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University Campus Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University (CSJMU), formerly Kanpur University, is a public state university located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is administered under the state ...

, where he graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. He earned his Master of Surgery in Otorhinolaryngology from the same college in 1983. He has been a member of the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...

since childhood.

Political career

In 1993, Vardhan was elected as a member of the Delhi Assembly representing Krishna Nagar. He was appointed as the State Minister of Health and Minister of Law for Delhi. He later became the state Minister of Education in 1996. He has been re-elected from the same constituency in the 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.

Minister of Health and Family Affairs of Delhi

Vardhan as the State Minister of Health in 1994 oversaw the implementation of the pilot project of the Pulse Polio Programme which involved the mass immunisation of 1 million children up to the age of 3 in Delhi. In 1995, this programme was launched nationwide leading to 88 million children being immunised. On 28 March 2014, India was declared polio-free by the WHO, as there had been no reported cases for three years. In 1997, the Delhi Prohibition of Smoking and Non-Smokers Health Protection Act was passed in the Delhi assembly which was one of the first anti-tobacco laws implemented by any state government. The act applied across the NCT of Delhi. It prohibited smoking in places of public work or use for example hospitals, restaurants, and educational institutions and in public service vehicles. It also prohibited the sale of smoking substances such as tobacco and beedis to anyone below the age of eighteen. Smoking products could not also be sold or stored within 100 metres of any educational institution. Under the provisions of the act, fines would be applied to anyone who contravened the law and they could potentially be ejected from places of public use by the police.

2013 Delhi Assembly elections

On 23 October 2013, Vardhan was named the

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

candidate for Delhi Assembly elections by the BJP. After the 2013 elections, BJP emerged as the single largest party winning 31 out of the 70 seats in the Fifth Legislative Assembly of Delhi. However, they fell short of an absolute majority so were unable to form the government.

2014 Lok Sabha election

Vardhan contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated the incumbent Union Minister of Law and Justice,

Kapil Sibal Kapil Sibal (born 8 August 1948) is an Indian lawyer and politician. Sibal has represented several high-profile cases in the Supreme Court of India and is widely regarded as one of the famous lawyers of India. He is a Member of Parliament, in Ra ...

of the Indian National Congress. He was also appointed in the first Narendra Modi government as Minister of Health and Family Welfare on 26 May 2014. In May 2017, he was given the additional charge of

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is an Indian government ministry. This ministry is headed by Secretary Rank senior most IAS officer. The ministry portfolio is currently held by Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister ...

following the death of Minister Anil Madhav Dave.

2019 Lok Sabha election

Vardhan again contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated Congress candidate Jai Parkash Aggarwal by a margin of 2,28,145 votes. While he received 52.94% votes, runner-up Aggarwal polled 29.67% votes.

As Union Minister

On 30 May 2019, Vardhan was sworn in as a cabinet minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's second term government. He is put in charge of the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Earth Sciences. Vardhan has been prominent in this role during the

COVID-19 pandemic in India The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). As of , according to Indian government figures, India has the second-highest n ...

. In February 2021, he endorsed an unproven "herbal cure" for COVID-19 devised by a company run by yoga guru

Ramdev Ramdev (born Ram Kisan Yadav in 1965), also referred to by his followers with the honorifics Baba or Swami, is an Indian yoga guru, businessman and brand ambassador for Patanjali Ayurved. Ramdev is primarily known for being a proponent of yo ...

, prompting criticism from health experts. In early March 2021, he declared the country was in the "endgame" of the pandemic, shortly before infections across the country rose dramatically in its second wave in April. Vardhan as a cabinet minister in

government, declared reservation for academic calendar 2020-2021 in MBBS and BDS colleges for the children of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

workers who died during COVID-19 pandemic in India. As a part of Cabinet Reshuffle on 7 July 2021, Dr Harshvardhan resigned from his post of Union Health Minister after holding its two years of office.

Controversies

At the 105th Indian Science Congress in March 2018, after the death of legendary British scientist Stephen Hawking, Vardhan claimed that Hawking had said that the

Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

postulated a theory superior to

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...

, despite the fact that there is no record of Hawking having made the statement. In 2019, after the Health Effects Institute released a scientific report estimating 1.2 million annual deaths in India due to air pollution, Vardhan denied the results, arguing that this report was intended to create panic In 2021,

Indian Medical Association The Indian Medical Association (IMA) is a national voluntary organisation of physicians in India. It was established in 1928 as the All India Medical Association, and was renamed the Indian Medical Association in 1930. It is a society registered ...

(IMA), the largest association of doctors in India, issued a statement which it objected to Vardhan who was endorsing Coronil, a product of

Patanjali Ayurved Patanjali Ayurved is an Indian multinational conglomerate holding company, based in Haridwar, India. It was founded by Ramdev and Balkrishna in 2006. Its office is in Delhi, with manufacturing units and headquarters in the industrial area of ...

. IMA questioned the ethics of a health minister of the country to release such falsely fabricated unscientific product to the people of the country.

Awards and honours

Vardhan has received the following awards and recognitions: * IMA President's Special Award of Appreciation by the

in 1994. *

Director-General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a governmen ...

's Polio Eradication Champion Award Commendation Medal by the

in 1998. * Polio Eradication Champion Award by the Rotary International in 2001. * "Doctor of the last Decade" (Swasthya Ratna) by Indian Medical Association's New Delhi branch in 2002. *

's Special

World No Tobacco Day Award World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed around the world every year on 31 May. The yearly celebration informs the public on the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what the World Health Organization (WHO) is ...

, by

WHO Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...

in 2021, for bringing legislation to ban e-cigarettes and Heated tobacco products, on the occasion of

World No Tobacco Day World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed around the world every year on 31 May. The yearly celebration informs the public on the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what the World Health Organization (WHO) is ...

Personal life

Vardhan is married to Nutan, and they have two sons and one daughter.

Bibliography

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vardhan, Harsh 1954 births Living people Indian surgeons Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Delhi State cabinet ministers of Delhi Health ministers of India Members of the Delhi Legislative Assembly India MPs 2014–2019 Lok Sabha members from Delhi Members of the Cabinet of India Leaders of the Opposition in the Delhi Legislative Assembly Delhi MLAs 2013–2015 Delhi MLAs 2008–2013 Narendra Modi ministry Medical doctors from Delhi India MPs 2019–present National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election