India

BJP Veteran RK Sinha, Former Rajya Sabha MP, Dies at 75

By PTI

Ravindra Kishore Sinha, a veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Rajya Sabha member, died at his Noida home on Friday after a brief illness, family sources said. He was 75. The BJP’s national president, Nitin Nabin, paid floral tributes to Sinha at AIIMS and praised his long‑standing contribution to the party, his role in giving SIS a global identity, and his work in creating jobs in the security sector. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale jointly issued a condolence message, noting Sinha’s impact on the private security services industry, nation‑building, social work and the media. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed deep grief, highlighting Sinha’s social service and organisational contributions. Union minister Nitin Gadkari also mourned Sinha, recalling his entrepreneurial journey and dedication to ideology. BJP national general secretaries Smriti Irani and Harish Dwivedi, and senior leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, all condoled the loss, emphasizing his work in journalism, social service, industry and politics. Sinha, born in Bihar and educated in Patna, began his career as a journalist with a Hindi newspaper. He founded SIS Enterprises in the late 1970s, the country’s largest private security firm, employing many ex‑servicemen from the Bangladesh war. The business is now valued at thousands of crore and was especially successful in the coal belt of what was then south Bihar, now Jharkhand. An ideological follower of the RSS from his student days, Sinha was among the BJP’s founding members, was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2014, and served on the party’s national executive committee.