There is ongoing speculation that Dr.Harsh Vardhan could be the next Union health minister. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Delhi unit chief Harsh Vardhan, who is among the seven newly-elected BJP MPs from the capital, is likely to become the health minister, BJP party sources indicated last Sunday.
According to an article in the Zee News, Dr.Harsh Vardhan, is considered to be close to prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi as well as the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), is the “front runner” for the job.However, Harsh Vardhan, who was also the party’s chief ministerial candidate ahead of the Delhi assembly elections in December last year, expressed his ignorance about the news.
“See, I am not aware of this news and even if it is going to happen, it will be decided by Modi-ji and the central party leadership,” he said.
He earned his Master of Surgery in Otolaryngology in 1983.Dr.Harsh Vardhan is credited with a successful campaign to immunise children against polio in Delhi when he was the health minister in the BJP government. He is known to be pioneer of Pulse Polio Programme.He launched it first in Delhi, which was then home to 10 per cent of polio cases in India. As Health minister of state in 1994, on a single day,he organised the mass immunisation of 1.2 million children. He is the recipient of the Director-General’s Polio Eradication Champion Award Commendation Medal by the World Health Organization in 1998 among others.
You can read more about his vision for health on his website.We want to hear from you. Is he a good candidate fort he next health minister of India?Send in your comments on this story.