Sanjay Pathak

Son of a minister working under the somewhat infamous Digvijaya Singh, Sanjay Pathak was more or less destined to get into politics. Three generations of Pathak’s family were ardent Congress loyalists until he broke the chain by leaving the Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. Aside from being a politician, Pathak is also a businessman. Speculation became rife, probably due to this, that he might’ve left Congress for reasons about his business although this has been strongly denied by Pathak on various occasions. Pathak is involved in several mining businesses along with having hotels, resorts, school and colleges and a Hindi news tabloid. Perhaps now best known for being an accused in the mining scam in Madhya Pradesh, besides defecting to the BJP, Pathak is a former Panchayat President of the District of Katni, the place of his birth. His first major political victory was defeating BJP MLA Dhruv Pratap Singh to win his state’s Legislative Assembly Elections held in 2008 from Vijayraghavgarh.

He was able to hang on to his seat in the next election five years later although this time the margin of victory was much less. He made the news again but this time, it was for all the right reasons. He flew in his helicopter into flash flood-ravaged Badrinath to rescue 43 pilgrims back in 2013. He has claimed to make free houses in his constituency for the homeless and impoverished. His father, Satyendra Pathak, himself owns a couple of hotels and other businesses. Pathak was the richest candidate in the 2013 Assembly Elections. He has been elected twice as an MLA from his family constituency of Vijayraghavgarh, which sums up how quickly Pathak had been able to carve a niche for himself in politics though it can be said that it might have a lot to do with his familial resources and the political support he had at his disposal before he got into politics. Now pushing to make his mark in his newly adopted BJP, only time will tell how further he shall be able to go.