Vijay Goel (born 4 January 1954) is an Indian politician and a former Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Statistic and Implementation in the NDA government. A former Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Goel is affiliated with the

Bharatiya Janata 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 became president of the

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

unit of the BJP in February 2013. He was elected to

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

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

in 2014. He is the former Delhi University Students' Union president and an alumnus of

Shri Ram College of Commerce Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is a constituent college of the University of Delhi. Founded in 1926 by industrialist Lala Shri Ram, it is widely regarded as the most prestigious college for commerce and economics in India. SRCC was ranke ...

. He has been the

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 of ...

for the 11th, 12th and 13th

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

representing the Sadar and

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 bu ...

constituencies of Delhi. He also served as the Union Minister of State of Labour, Parliamentary Affairs, Statistics & Programme Implementation and Youth Affairs & Sports in the

National Democratic Alliance (India) National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a centre-right to right-wing and conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was founded in 1998 and currently controls the government of Indi ...

government until 2004.

Early and personal life

Vijay Goel was born to former Delhi

Vidhan Sabha The State Legislative Assembly, or Vidhan Sabha, or also Saasana Sabha, is a legislative body in the states and union territories of India. In the 28 states and 3 union territories with a unicameral state legislature, it is the sole legislati ...

Speaker and BJP member Charti Lal Goel and Basanti Devi on 4 January 1954. He has an M.Com. degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce and a LL.B. degree from the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

. He was 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" ...

and was jailed during

Emergency in India The Emergency in India was a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared across the country. Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352 of the Constitution beca ...

. After his release from jail, Goel became president of Delhi University Students' Union in 1977 as a candidate of the

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) () is a right-wing all India student organisation affiliated to the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). History The ABVP, founded in 1948 with the initiative of the RSS ...

. He married Preeti Goel, a professor at the University of Delhi, on 8 March 1985. The couple have a son and a daughter. Goel was the

(ABVP) treasurer in 1974–1975. He exposed corruption concerning fake certificates that was then operating at the university.

Political career

Goel elected to

11th Lok Sabha General elections were held in India in 1996 Indian general election, April–May 1996 to elect the members of the 11th Lok Sabha. The result of the election was a hung parliament, which would see three Prime Ministers in two years and force t ...

from Sadar and to

12th 12 (twelve) is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13. Twelve is a superior highly composite number, divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. It is the number of years required for an orbital period of Jupiter. It is central to many systems ...

and

13th Lok Sabha The 13th Lok Sabha (10 October 1999 – 6 February 2004) is the thirteenth session of the Lok Sabha (House of the People, or lower house in the Parliament of India). It was convened after 1999 Indian general election held during September–Oc ...

from

. He served as Minister of State for

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Parliamentary Affairs ''Parliamentary Affairs'' is a British peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal. Founded in 1947, it focuses on the government and politics of the United Kingdom, and also covers parliamentary systems across the world. It is published by the Oxf ...

, Statistics & Programme Implementation and Youth Affairs & Sports till 2004 in the Vajpayee Government. Goel played an instrumental role in winning the bid to host 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Later, he was among the first few people to bring out financial irregularities by officials of the Games' Organising Committee. Goel had been promoted as the BJP's candidate for Chief Minister in the

2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election The Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held on 4 December 2013, with the result announced on 8 December resulting in formation of the Fifth Legislative Assembly of Delhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party won a plurality, closely followed by Aam ...

until six weeks prior to voting day. According to some source, the electoral threat posed by the recently formed

Aam Aadmi Party The Aam Aadmi Party (; AAP) is a political party in India, as one of the national political parties. The AAP was founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, popular ...

caused him to be replaced by Harsh Vardhan. Other sources say that he met with opposition from the

, an organisation that is closely associated with the BJP and who were unhappy with how he was running the party in the state. He was elected to

from Rajasthan in 2014. He remained the Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sports from 5 July 2016 to 3 September 2017. In his tenure, a dedicated portal was launched to search young, talented people in sports who otherwise go unnoticed. The National Talent Search Portal connects potential sportsperson to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres for training and better guidance. He became the minister of state for Parliamentary Affairs on 3 September 2017.

Contributions

Under the banner of Lok Abhiyan, a socio-cultural organisation, Goel initiated protests against state-sponsored lotteries in India in 1993. He led a campaign supported by over 120 MPs. The lottery was banned in India on 7 July 1998. Vijay Goel established The Toy Bank, a not for profit organisation, in 1987 that collects toys from donors, refurbishes/renews them and redistributes the toys amongst the underprivileged children in

. The Toy Bank was co-founded by his daughter Vidyun Goel. Goel has been actively involved in heritage conservation. As a Lok Sabha representative from

, Goel hosted a two-day cultural festival "Chaudhvin Ka Chand" in 1998 to get the soul back into the 350-year-old city of

Shahjahanabad Old Delhi or Purani Dilli is an area in the Central Delhi district of Delhi, India. It was founded as a walled city named Shahjahanabad in 1648, when Shah Jahan (the Mughal Empire, Mughal Mughal emperors, emperor at the time) decided to shift t ...

and turn Chandni Chowk into a major tourist attraction in Delhi. For this, among other measures, electricity polls were rooted out, pavements were cleared of encroachments, and shop shutters were painted to spruce up the locality before cultural festival. Goel also restored a 200-year-old

haveli A ''haveli'' is a traditional townhouse, mansion, manor house, in the Indian subcontinent, usually one with historical and architectural significance, and located in a town or city. The word ''haveli'' is derived from Arabic ''hawali'', mean ...

named Haveli Dharampura in

with his son Siddhant Goel. Vijay Goel's Haveli Dharampura has recently won prestigious UNESCO Asia-Pacific 2017 Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation.

Publications

* ''Delhi, The Emperor's City: Rediscovering Chandni Chowk and its Environs'', by Vijay Goel. Lustre Press, 2003. . *Old Delhi and the Walled City by Vijay Goel, Om Publications 2011 *Purane Khel, Khan-Pan aur Rehan-Sehan, by Vijay Goel, Diamond Books, 2018.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Goel, Vijay Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Delhi Living people People from Delhi Presidents of Delhi University Students Union Shri Ram College of Commerce alumni India MPs 1996–1997 India MPs 1998–1999 India MPs 1999–2004 1954 births Lok Sabha members from Delhi Rajya Sabha members from Rajasthan Rajya Sabha members from the Bharatiya Janata Party