Satish Poonia

Satish Subhashchandra Poonia is an Indian politician. Currently, he is the president of Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan and member of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly representing Amber Vidhan Sabha since 2018. He is the first Jat politician to lead the BJP in state. A party worker at the core he has a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background and is close to the rank of the Sangh Parivar.

In the year 2011, he was the convener of senior BJP leader L.K. Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra. In 2013, contributed to the successful running of “Suraj Sankalp Yatra 2013” by then BJP State President Smt. Vasundhara Raje. He played a very important role in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha elections of 2010 and 2015.

Dr. Poonia worked as State General Secretary in Bharatiya Janata Party, Rajasthan from 2004 to 2006 and as State Morcha in charge from 2006 to 2007. He has been the State General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party four times from 2004 to 2014 with various organisational responsibilities, from intensive migration from remote tribal areas to marginal desert areas, strengthening the party from village to village, and successfully led various political movements.

In 1992, he became the state general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and successfully organised the historic youth conference in Kota. He was made the State President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Rajasthan in 1998.  After the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in Rajasthan in 1998, he undertook a 550 km padyatra from 14 March to 7 April. This was the first such journey in Rajasthan's political history and still holds the record of being the only such yatra by any politician. He took this padayatra to boost the morale of workers covering 34 assembly constituencies, 9 Lok Sabha constituencies, 225 villages.

Dr. Poonia's early education was completed in Rajgarh, after which he completed his further studies from Churu. He graduated from Maharaja College in the year 1989. After this he did L.L.B from Rajasthan University. He holds a Diploma in Labor Law, Criminology and Indian History and Culture from Law College. In 1994, he finished M.Sc. in Geography and after that did PhD in geography from Rajasthan University.

From 1988 to 1989, he played a very important role in the student union election movement at Rajasthan University and in the educational reform movement of ABVP. In 1989, he became the General Secretary of the Student Union at Rajasthan University and led agitation against Bofors scandal, and was also jailed during this period.

Dr. Satish Poonia, influenced by the nationalist ideology of the RSS, he joined Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1982. Over the next decade he worked in ABVP as Metropolitan Co-Secretary, State Co-Secretary, Metropolitan Secretary, and Pradesh Mantri in the Unit President at Maharaja College in Jaipur.

Dr. Satish Poonia was born on 24 October 1964. He hails from a farmer family in Rajgarh, a small village in Churu district of Rajasthan. His father, Late. Shri Subhash Chandra Poonia was the former head of Rajgarh Panchayat Samiti. His mother is Smt. Parmeshwari Devi. Poonia's uncle Late Shri Ramswaroop Poonia was a freedom fighter and an associate of Chaudhary Kumbharam Arya, a freedom fighter of the Bikaner division and the then leader of the Praja Parishad movement. He is married to Mrs. Mohini Poonia, a teacher by profession and they have two children; son, Maheep Poonia and daughter, Anushka Poonia.