Parvesh Verma


Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma is an Indian politician and a Member of parliament from West Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency. As a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he is serving his second term as an MP for West Delhi. In 2014 he was elected to the 16th Lok Sabha, and re-elected in 2019 for the 17th Lok Sabha with the highest ever margin of victory in the history of Delhi, a margin of 578,486 votes. He is a member of two high level committees of Parliament, the Finance Committee, and the Estimates Committee. He had also served on the Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament and a member of the Standing Committee on Urban Development in his first term as an MP. He contested the Mehrauli Vidhan Sabha constituency in the 2013 assembly election and defeated MP Yoganand Shastri, speaker of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha.

Early life

Parvesh Verma was born to Sahib Singh Verma, a former Chief Minister of Delhi, and Sahib Kaur on 7 November 1977. He has one brother and three sisters.
He finished his schooling from Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram. He then attended and graduated from the Kirori Mal College, affiliated with the University of Delhi. He received his Master of Business Administration from the Fore School of Management. His uncle Azad Singh was the mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation and contested Mundka Vidhan Sabha Constituency on the BJP ticket in the 2013 assembly election.

Political career

Verma is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling party at the Centre and the major opposition party at the Delhi Vidhan Sabha. He was a member of the Delhi BJP Election Committee for the 2013 assembly election. In May 2014, he won West Delhi Constituency and became a Member of Parliament. He became a member of the Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament, and of the Standing Committee on Urban Development. He also served on the governing body of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi. Currently, he is a member of the Estimates Committee, and Finance Committee of the Parliament.
Verma was interested in contesting for the West Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency in the 2009 general election but was denied a ticket by the party, despite receiving assurances from party leaders that he would be considered. Instead Jagdish Mukhi of Janakpuri MLA contested West Delhi. A mahapanchayat held on 22 March 2009 in Dwarka " the decision of the BJP to deny Parvesh the ticket".
On 7 November 2013, the BJP announced Verma as the party's candidate from Mehrauli constituency for the 2013 Legislative Assembly election. The mayor of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Sarita Chaudhary, and senior BJP Leader Sher Singh Dagar, the BJP candidate for Mehrauli in the 2008 election, both wanted to contest the same seat. Supporters of both the aspirants opposed Verma's candidature. Chaudhary's supporters protested outside the Delhi BJP headquarters and called Verma an "outsider". His mother and wife campaigned for him in the constituency. He defeated runner-up Narinder Singh Sejwal of the Aam Aadmi Party by 4,564 votes, and the incumbent MLA and Speaker of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha, Yoganand Shastri. In 2014 Indian general election, Verma won the election for the West Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency by a record margin of 2,68,586 votes.
Verma won a second term as MP in West Delhi with a record-breaking margin of 5.78 lakh votes beating Congress's Mahabal Mishra who got 2,87,162 votes.
Verma broke his own record for the highest victory margin in Delhi and 6th highest in India.
In the 2019 General Elections Verma got 8,65,648 of the total 14,41,601 votes polled in the seat. This is the highest recorded margin in the history of Delhi that any Lok Sabha candidate had ever won by.

Personal life

Verma is married to Swati Singh Verma, the daughter of former Union Minister and BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh, Vikram Verma. They have 3 children, two daughters and a son. Eldest among them is Sanidhi Singh, followed by Prisha Singh and Shiven Singh. He runs the NGO Rashtriya Swabhiman.

Controversies

During the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election campaigning, Verma courted controversy by claiming that the Shaheen Bagh protesters would "enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters, kill them". Subsequently, he was banned from campaigning for 96 hours by the Election Commission of India.