He once hit the streets of Amritsar as a 17-year-old student activist, raising his voice against eve teasing.
Decades later, Tarun Chugh has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha — completing a political journey that began at the booth level in the bylanes of Namak Mandi and ended at the doors of Parliament.
Party sources said the BJP’s decision to send its national general secretary to the upper house of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh is being seen as recognition of a career built entirely on organisational work, not electoral politics. He was in the core BJP team that revoked the Special Status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Born into a family with three generations of RSS association, Chugh became a swayamsevak at the age of nine in Amritsar.
His student activism through the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad gave him his first taste of public life. By 1989, he was a booth-in-charge at the Shakti Nagar branch in Amritsar’s Namak Mandi area — the most basic unit of the BJP’s organisational machinery.
From there, the climb was steady and unhurried. District Youth Wing president in 1993. Punjab BJP Youth Morcha president in 1997. District vice-president in 2003. State Secretary in 2008. State general secretary in 2012.
In 2014, he joined the party’s national team as national secretary under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then-BJP president Amit Shah. In 2020, JP Nadda elevated him to national general secretary.
Over the next several years, Chugh worked as party in-charge in some of India’s most sensitive and politically complex territories — Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Earlier this year, the BJP Parliamentary Board appointed him as central observer for the legislature party leader election in Manipur — a sensitive internal assignment that reflected the trust the party reposes in him.
Party sources said Chugh will remain active in Punjab politics. With the 2027 assembly elections approaching and the BJP working to establish itself as an independent force in the state after its split with the Shiromani Akali Dal, a Punjab-origin leader of Chugh’s stature in the Rajya Sabha could give the party a stronger national platform to raise issues of border security, drugs, development, and youth unemployment.
Tarun Chugh completed his MBA in HR from DAV College, Amritsar.
