Hoshiar Singh: entrepreneur to MLA

Lalit Mohan

Hoshiar Singh, a first-time MLA from Dehra and an industrialist from Mumbai, returned to his native village, Kherian, about two years ago and defeated political heavyweights of the Congress and the BJP in the previous Assembly elections. He defeated former minister and senior leader of the BJP Ravinder Ravi and former minister and Rajya Sabha member Viplove Thakur of the Congress.

As an MLA, Hoshiar Singh presently stays in his palatial house in Kherian near Guler. He stays here with his mother and wife. His day starts at 6 am, as the people of the area gather at his house to get their works done by the bureaucracy. His mother is quiet active and regularly greets people who come to meet his MLA son.

Hoshiar Singh said his father had moved to Mumbai for business reasons. His family had established engineering units in Mumbai that work for the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and power transmission companies. Now they also have two units in the Amb subdivision of Una district in Himachal. Their business was in Mumbai, but they kept in touch with their native area regularly, he said.

Though Hoshiar Singh and wife have now moved to Dehra, one of his daughters is still living in Mumbai. His elder daughter, Shawati, is doing architectural engineering in Mumbai while his younger daughter, Shifali, is doing her schooling in Dehradun. The younger daughter has taken to the sport of shooting as a profession and was ranked 58th in the world in the 10-metre rifle shooting. Hoshiar Singh’s elder brother is now looking after the family business. The MLA said initially there was some reluctance in his family regarding his joining politics. However, now that he has been elected as an MLA, his family approved it and there was support for it.

He said what brought him into politics was the backwardness of the Dehra area. Most of the residents of Dehra were Pong Dam oustees. They had sacrificed their land for the nation but in return were living in most pitiable conditions. There were still no roads to many villages in the area, no employment avenues and no agriculture in most of the Dehra areas. 

Most of the time, outsiders from both the BJP and the Congress had been representing the area. “I asked both the Congress and the BJP to give the party ticket to a local leader in the previous Assembly elections. However, when they didn’t oblige, I myself took a plunge in politics in the previous Assembly elections and people reposed faith in me.”

Being an entrepreneur unlike regular politicians, Hoshiar Singh thinks of out of the box schemes to improve the condition of the people of his constituency.

He is thinking of starting scuba diving and developing a golf ground on the banks of the Pong Dam Lake. He also plans to develop wildlife safaris, involving people in uprooting ‘lantana’ from forest areas.