Vivek Tankha: The Congress MP who won Arunachal for his party

The 59-year-old Supreme Court lawyer is proving to be an asset for his party winning two big profile cases-- in Uttarakhand and Arunachal

Vivek Tankha, senior Supreme Court lawyer who was recently sent to the Rajya Sabha by the Congress, was the star of the day as apex court ordered restoring of the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh. The 59-year-old has proved to be an asset for the Congress in arguing the case related to the dismissal of the Harish Rawat-led Uttarakhand government in March and now the Arunachal Pradesh government.

The Congress expects Tankha and other Supreme Court lawyers within its ranks in the Rajya Sabha to spearhead the attack on the treasury benches in the forthcoming monsoon session. Others are P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi. 

Tankha is known to have cordial relations across party lines and won his Rajya Sabha election last month with the support of Bahujan Samaj Party legislators, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had tried to queer the pitch by fielding a candidate against him. This was against the wishes of Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, with whom Tankha is known to have cordial relations.

Tankha, who will turn 60 in September, hails from a Kashmiri Pandit family of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. His father R K Tankha was a judge in the Jabalpur High Court. The Tankhas were one of several Kashmiri Pandit families that settled in Madhya Pradesh after the partition in 1947. 

While the influence of Jan Sangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP, was significant among these families, the Tankhas have remained committed to the Congress. According to old timers in Jabalpur, the Tankhas have always had access to the Nehru-Gandhi family, never having to seek an appointment to meet Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi. Tankha’s father was considered close senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh.

Tankha completed his law degree from Delhi University’s Faculty of Law. He enrolled as an advocate in September 1979 and became one of the youngest Advocate Generals of Madhya Pradesh in 1999 and served until 2003. Tankha was the standing counsel for the Income Tax Department from 1991 to 1999. He has experience in commercial laws and litigation, corporate disputes, amalgamation and demergers. Tankha has also been a votary of state laws to ensure ‘distributive justice’, including in subjects like medical admission, land allotment and distribution and job quotas. Recently, Tankha had also taken up the case related to Vyapam scam.

Tankha is a sports enthusiast and was one of the Olympic torch bearers in the torch relay in New Delhi in 2004.