From BCCI to Union cabinet: Anurag enters 'big' league

At an election rally in Himachal Pradesh earlier this month, BJP president Amit Shah promised to make Anurag Thakur a "big leader" if voters in Hamirpur elected him with a record margin.

They did. And Shah kept his word, with Thakur being sworn in as an Union minister on Thursday.

Son of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Anurag Thakur had won the Hamirpur constituency for the fourth time by defeating Ram Lal Thakur of the Congress by nearly four lakh votes, a record margin for the constituency. He had got a vote share of 69.04 per cent by bagging over 6.8 lakh votes.

Hailing from Samirpur village in Hamirpur district, Anurag Thakur was elected as an MP for the first time in a by-election in May 2008. He followed it up with successive victories in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

"You elect Anurag with a record margin, I will make him a big leader," Shah had urged the voters at an election rally in Bilaspur, Hamirpur, on May 12.

A former Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) president, Thakur led a march from Kolkata to Srinagar under the banner of 'Rashtriya Ekta Yatra' to unfurl the national flag at Lal Chowk on 26 January, 2011.

Born on 24 October, 1974, Anurag Thakur did his graduation from the Doaba College in Punjab's Jalandhar, where his father used to teach before joining politics.

The 44-year-old was also the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from May 2016-February 2017. The Supreme Court had ordered his ouster as the BCCI president in January that year for trying to hinder the implementation of the Lodha reforms. Later, he filed a petition in the apex court in August last year to get "his side of the story heard".

Thakur had received the 'Best Young Parliamentarian Award' in 2011. He had also remained chief whip of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha.