Thirty years, four stations

PTI reports that he entered politics through Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose security he had served in as a police officer. His first contest in the Election Commission’s records, however, was for another party. In the 1996 general election, “Satyapal Singh Baghel” stood in the Jalesar Lok Sabha constituency as the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate.

He came second with 155,047 votes (29.52%). The BJP’s Om Pal Singh Nidar won with 194,422 (37.01%), and the Samajwadi Party’s candidate finished third with 81,005. It was a defeat, but a strong first showing in a seat he would win at the next election.

By the 1998 election he was the Samajwadi Party candidate in Jalesar. He won by just 2,734 votes, 265,505 to Om Pal Singh Nidar’s 262,771, and entered the 12th Lok Sabha. When the House was dissolved a year later he held the seat in 1999 by 8,062 votes. In 2004 he won a third consecutive term by 106,068 votes, taking 287,091 votes against 181,023 for the BJP’s Pratyendra Pal Singh.

Over these three terms he sat on a long list of parliamentary committees: Subordinate Legislation, Estimates, Public Undertakings, Human Resource Development, Food, Civil Supplies and Public Distribution, and, from 2007, the Standing Committee on External Affairs. He also served on the consultative committees of the Health and Home Affairs ministries. The Parliamentary Work file has the full list.

The 2008 delimitation of constituencies abolished the Jalesar Lok Sabha seat. Jalesar survives as an Assembly segment, now part of the Agra (SC) Lok Sabha constituency he represents today. In a report on his 2021 ministerial induction, Outlook/PTI said that after three terms as an MP he was suspended from the Samajwadi Party. Neither the date nor the circumstances are documented in official records.

For the 2009 general election he returned to the BSP and contested the Firozabad seat against Akhilesh Yadav. He polled 219,710 votes and finished second, 67,301 behind. Akhilesh Yadav gave up the seat, and a by-election followed in November 2009. Baghel stood again for the BSP and finished third. Congress’s Raj Babbar won.

On 5 July 2010 he became a member of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh for the BSP. During the term he served on the Standing Committee on Industry and the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Finance, and was named to the Court of Manipur University. PRS Legislative Research records 96% attendance and 26 debates for this period. His membership ended on 12 March 2014.

He contested the 2014 general election as the BJP candidate in Firozabad and polled 420,524 votes (38.07%), the highest total of his career to that point. He lost to the Samajwadi Party’s Akshay Yadav. In July 2015 the party named him national president of its OBC Morcha, the wing for Other Backward Classes. He held the post from 2015 to 2016.

The next step was state politics. In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh election he won Tundla (SC) in Firozabad district by 56,070 votes. On 19 March 2017 he was sworn into Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet with responsibility for animal husbandry, fisheries and minor irrigation.

In 2019 the BJP fielded him in Agra (SC). He won with 646,875 votes (56.48%) and resigned his Assembly seat. On 7 July 2021 he entered the Union Council of Ministers as Minister of State for Law and Justice. Outlook/PTI noted it was his first stint as a central minister. In 2022, while still a Union minister, he stood against Akhilesh Yadav in the Karhal Assembly seat and lost. In May 2023 he moved to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

He retained Agra in 2024 with the largest margin of his career, 271,294 votes. On 9 June 2024 he was appointed Minister of State in two ministries at once: Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, and Panchayati Raj. He still held both posts as of September 2026.