Prakash Pant

Prakash Pant (11 November 1960 – 5 June 2019) was a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and member of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly in India. He was elected from Pithoragarh (Vidhan Sabha constituency) in the 2002 to 2007 but in 2012 Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly election, he lost to Mayukh Singh Mahar of Indian National Congress. He was the first speaker of Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly. He was also a minister in Government of Uttarakhand with portfolios of Tourism, Culture, Pilgrimage Endowment, parliamentary Affairs & Reorganization.

He was battling with cancer for some time and died in Texas in the United States of America on 5 June 2019.

Prakash Pant son of Mohan Chandra Pant, was born in a simple family of a small village in Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand. His wife is a school assistant teacher by profession.

Prakash Pant completed his intermediate in the year 1977. In 1980, he graduated in Pharmacy from Dwarahat, a rural area in the district Almora.

Prakash Pant was born on 11 November 1960, in a simple Brahmin family of a small village in Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand. He was raised in a very humble background. The young village boy had leadership qualities right from the beginning. In spite of being in government service, he worked selflessly among the underprivileged and deprived classes of society to help them prosper and uplift. He resigned from government service to solely work for the deprived masses and thus joined Bhartiya Janta- Party having Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhaya as his idol. He aimed to bring about a change in life of each and every man of the society.Apart from his political career, he was an ace shooter. In 2004, he won a gold medal in the state shooting championship. In the same year, he also won a silver medal in national level shooting competition (G.B. Mavlankar Shooting Competition, Coimbatore) in 2004. He is well-travelled and has been to various countries like UK, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Dubai and Canada.

Prakash Pant had inbuilt leadership qualities right from the beginning. A pharmacist by profession, 58-year-old Pant's political career started in the year 1977 when he was chosen General Secretary of Military Science Board. In 1978, he was elected as the member of Municipal Council of Pithoragarh. Just after 10 years, he was selected as the member of Legislative Council U.P.Soon when Uttaranchal, now Uttarakhand, became a state in 2000, Pant became the first speaker of the state assembly (Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha). In this process, he became the youngest speaker of such a body among the Commonwealth nations. In the first Assembly elections in 2002, he was elected to Uttarakhand Assembly from Pithoragarh and then again in 2007. With the Khanduri government coming to power, he became a cabinet minister and was given the parliamentary affairs portfolio. In 2012 election, he faced his first defeat from Mayukh Singh Mahar of the Congress, but won in 2017 from Pithoragarh, though his win can largely be credited to the visit of Narendra Modi in the town which moved the masses in favor of the BJP. Up until his death, Pant was a Cabinet Minister in the state of Uttarakhand and held important portfolios of Tourism, Culture, Pilgrimage Endowment, Parliamentary Affairs, and Reorganization. Prakash Pant had recently got the Finance ministry, looking after the excise, commercial and entertainment taxes.