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Jana, who vacated the BJP president's chair for former Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu, joined the RSS way back in 1940 when the organisation was taking root in Madurai and functioned as a pracharak (propagator) in the city for more than a decade.
Born of a third-generation lawyer father, Jana graduated in law from Madras University and started his practice. He joined the Bharatiya Jan Sangh in 1965 and became its Tamil Nadu state secretary. He gave up his practice to become a full-time member of the party after BJS president Deendayal Upadhyaya's murder.
Jana was secretary, resistance movements, in Tamil Nadu during the Emergency. When the Janata experiment at the Centre failed in 1980, he became one of the founder secretaries of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was named a general secretary of the party in 1983 and vice-president two years later.
Jana's interesting hobby of studying human nature must have stood him in good stead for a decade in the 1980s and early 1990s when he was put in charge of building the hitherto non-existent party in the four southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Known for his oratorical skills, Jana came to Delhi in 1993 at the request of then party president Lal Kishenchand Advani and was put in charge of the BJP's intellectual, economic, defence and foreign affairs cells.
The new law minister, who is a bachelor, can cook and likes music, but rarely watches movies.
PTI
The Complete Coverage: Cabinet Reshuffle 2002
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