A former Indian Army officer, Colonel Ajay Kothiyal is a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party and the the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate for this year’s assembly elections in Uttarakhand. He is a climber and philanthropist who served as the principal of the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) in Uttarakhand. 

He was the head of the Nehru Organization of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi when the institute was tasked with rescuing and rehabilitating the Kedarnath temple after it was destroyed by a flash flood in 2013. Kothiyal is single.

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His non-profit organisation, the “Youth Foundation,” prepares young boys and girls from Uttarakhand to join the Indian Army. In 2016, he received the Uttarakhand Ratna award for his contributions to the development and employment of Uttarakhand’s young.

Kothiyal was born on February 26, 1969, as the oldest son of Border Security Force Inspector General (Retd.) Satyasaran Kothiyal and Sushila Kothiyal. St. Joseph’s Academy in Dehradun, Brightlands School, Kendriya Vidyalaya in Dehradun, D.A.V. Post Graduate College in Dehradun, and Indian Military Academy are among his former schools.

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Following graduation, he passed the CDS test and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Fourth Battalion of the Garhwal Rifles Regiment in 1992. Colonel Kothiyal began training at the High Altitude Warfare School in ‘basic mountain warfare’ in 1994. (HAWS).

Colonel Kothiyal (then Major) was a member of the Indian Army’s first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 2001, led by Brigadier Krishan Kumar AVSM.

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Under the command of Major Kothiyal, the Indian Army conducted its first surgical strike in the Pulwama area on May 12, 2003. He was injured during the operation, which resulted in the elimination of seven terrorists. He received the Kirti Chakra. He still has two bullets in his body.