Harsh Vardhan

Harsh Vardhan contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated Congress candidate Jai Parkash Aggarwal by a margin of 2,28,145 votes. While Vardhan received 52.94% votes, runner-up Aggarwal polled 29.67% votes. On 30 May 2019, Harsh 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.

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

At the 105th Indian Science Congress in March 2018, after the death of legendary British scientist Stephen Hawking, Vardhan wrongly claimed that Hawking had said that the Vedas postulated a theory superior to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, despite the fact that there is no record of Hawking having made the statement.

Harsh Vardhan as the State Minister of Health in 1994 oversaw the successful 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.

Harsh Vardhan contested the Chandni Chowk seat in Delhi where he defeated the incumbent Union Minister of Law and Justice, Kapil Sibal 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 following the death of Minister Anil Madhav Dave.

On 23 October 2013, Vardhan was named the Chief Minister 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.

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.

In 1993, he 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. Vardhan has been re-elected from the same constituency in the 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.

Harsh Vardhan was born in Delhi to Om Prakash Goel and Sneh Lata Goel. Vardhan finished his schooling from Anglo Sanskrit Victoria Jubilee Senior Secondary 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, 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. Harsh Vardhan has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since childhood.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan (born Harshvardhan Goel, 13 December 1954) is an Indian Otorhinolaryngologist and incumbent minister at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Earth Sciences in the BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He represents Chandni Chowk in Delhi as a Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha. He was elected to the office of Chairperson of Executive Board of the World Health Organization from May 22, 2020.