Lakkhiram Agarwal (13 February 1932 – 24 January 2009) was an Indian politician from the

Bharatiya Janta Party 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 Modi ...

(BJP). He was a member of the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

from 1990 to 2002 representing

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

and later

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

. He was the state president of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh from 1990 to 2000, and became the state president of Chhattisgarh BJP after the bifurcation of Madhya Pradesh.

Personal life

Lakhiram Agrawal was born on 13 February 1932 to Mansha Ram Agrawal and Rukmani Devi in

Kharsia Kharsia in Chhattisgarh State, India Geography Kharsia is located at . It has an average elevation of . Demographics India census, Kharsia had a population of 17,387. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. Kharsia has an aver ...

Raigarh district Raigarh district is a district of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Raigarh is the district headquarters. The district was formed by merging the princely states of Raigarh, Sakti, Sarangarh, Udaipur and Jashpur. Jashpur is now a sepa ...

. He married Marwan Devi in 1950 and had five sons and one daughter. His son

Amar Agrawal Amar Agrawal (born 22 September 1963) is an Indian politician and former Cabinet Minister of Government of Chhattisgarh. He is a member of Bharatiya Janata Party. Agrawal represented the legislature of Chhattisgarh from 1998 to 2018. After hi ...

is a cabinet minister in the

Government of Chhattisgarh Government of Chhattisgarh also known as the State Government of Chhattisgarh, or locally as State Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh and its 33 districts. It consists of an executive, led by the ...

, holding the portfolios of Taxation, Commerce and the Public health Department. He was educated until

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

in Naharpalli, Kharsia.

Political career

Agrawal became active in politics in 1960. He had served as the chairman of Kharsia municipal council from 1964 to 1969, the president of the District Cooperative Bank, Raigarh from 1977 to 1980, and the vice-president of the Madhya Pradesh State Marketing Association from 1977 to 1980. He was detained under the

Maintenance of Internal Security Act The Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was a controversial law passed by the Indian parliament in 1971 giving the administration of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Indian law enforcement agencies very broad powers – indefinite pre ...

in 1975 during the emergency. He became the State General Secretary of Madhya Pradesh BJP in 1983. He was a member of the

from 10 April 1990 to 31 October 2000 representing

, and from 1 November 2000 to 9 April 2002 representing

. Agrawal was a supporter of the formation of Chhattisgarh as a separate state.

Nand Kumar Sai Nand Kumar Sai (born 1 January 1946) is an Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was elected to Lok Sabha, 1989–1991 and 1996–1998, from Raigarh (Lok Sabha constituency) when it was in Madhya Pradesh. In 20 ...

, in a 2010 interview, said that Agrawal was one of the contenders for the chief minister post after the

2003 Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly election Legislative Assembly elections were held in Chhattisgarh in December 2003, electing the 90 members of the first Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly. 2003 elections were the first election in Chhattisgarh after its formation from Madhya Pradesh. The ...

, along with

Raman Singh Dr. Raman Singh (born 15 October 1952) is an Indian politician and Former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. Currently, he is the National Vice-President of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is also an ayurvedic practitioner. He is also the longest se ...

and

Dilip Singh Judeo Dilip Singh Judeo (8 March 1949 – 14 August 2013) was an Indian politician and former Minister of State for Environment and Forests in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance governme ...

Death

Agrawal died on 24 January 2009 after being admitted to

Apollo Hospital Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited is an Indian multinational healthcare group headquartered in Chennai. Along with the eponymous hospital chain, the company also operates pharmacies, primary care and diagnostic centres, telehealth clinics, ...

, Bilaspur. He was cremated with state honors in Kharsia. Raman Singh,

Shivraj Singh Chouhan Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born 5 March 1959), is an Indian politician and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the 17th and current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, having been elected to the same position 3 times in the past, and a Member ...

Kailash Chandra Joshi Kailash Chandra Joshi (14 July 1929 – 24 November 2019)Sumitra Mahajan Sumitra Mahajan ( ''née'' Sathe; born: 12 April 1943) is an Indian politician who was the Speaker of Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament from 2014 to 2019. She belongs to Bharatiya Janata Party. She represented the Indore con ...

, and

Vikram Verma Vikram Verma (born 23 January 1944) is an Indian politician and a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. He formerly served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the Rajya Sabha. He also served as a Minister in the ...

attended the funeral and paid their tributes to Agrawal. Chauhan termed Agrawal as "an organiser and a devotee of nationalist values".

Legacy

A medical college in Raigarh was named after Agrawal in 2013. During the inauguration of a statue of Agrawal by

Nitin Gadkari Nitin Jairam Gadkari (; born 27 May 1957) is an Indian politician from Maharashtra who is the current Minister for Road Transport & Highways in the Government of India. He is also the longest serving Minister for Road Transport & Highways cur ...

in Kharsia, Raman Singh said that Agrawal was a contributor to the "identity of Chhattisgarh as a developed state".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agarwal, Lakkhiram 1932 births 2009 deaths Rajya Sabha members from Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sabha members from Chhattisgarh Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Chhattisgarh Rajya Sabha members from the Bharatiya Janata Party