Dattatreya began his political career and joined Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1965. He served as a pracharak of the organisation from 1965 to 1968. He also served as state joint secretary of Loka Sangarsha Samiti and was imprisoned during the Emergency in the 1970s. In 1980, Dattatreya officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was appointed general secretary of the party's Andhra Pradesh unit. He served in that position until 1989. Dattatreya was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Secunderabad constituency In 1991. He defeated his nearest rival T. Manemma Anjaiah of the Indian National Congress by a margin of 85,063 votes. He was the only BJP candidate to win from Andhra Pradesh. In 1997, he became president of the party's Andhra Pradesh unit. P.V. Rajeshwara Rao defeated Dattatreya in the general election held in 1996. However, two years later, he defeated Rao by a margin of 185,910 votes and was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from the Secunderabad constituency. Rediff.com wrote that the party won four constituencies in the state due to his efforts. He served as Union Minister of State for Urban Development in the second Vajpayee ministry from 1998 to 1999. In 1999, Dattatreya was elected to the Lok Sabha for the third time. Between 1999 and 2001, he again served as Union MoS for Urban Development in the third Vajpayee ministry. From 2001 to 2003, he served as Union MoS for Railways. In 2003, he was again given the Urban Development portfolio. Dattatreya lost the 2004 Indian general election. In the same year, he became the national secretary of the party, a post which he held until 2006. In 2006, he was appointed president of the party's state unit. Three years later, he became a national executive member of the party. In the 2009 Indian general election, he lost his constituency for the second time. He was appointed as the national vice-president of the party in 2013. In May 2014, Dattatreya was re-elected to the Lok Sabha for the fourth time from the Secunderabad constituency. On 9 November, he was made a MoS Labour and Employment. He became the lone minister in the Modi ministry from the state of Telangana. On 1 September 2017, he resigned from his post. Subsequently, he was made a member of the standing committee on Finance. On 21 March 2019, the BJP replaced Dattatreya with former MLA G. Kishan Reddy as its candidate from Secunderabad for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He was appointed as the Governor of Himachal Pradesh in the year 2019.
Personal life
Dattatreya married Vasantha on 17 May 1989. In November 2016, their daughter Vijaya Lakshmi married Jignesh Reddy, the son of chevella parliament constituency contested Janardan Reddy. On 24 May 2018, their son Vaishnav died of heart attack at the age of 21. Dattatreya has also served as joint secretary of A. P. Cyclone Committee and general secretary for Voluntary Organisations, India.
Image
According to The Hindu, "Dattatreya is seen as the most non-controversial and acceptable BJP leader in Telangana". Business Standard wrote that he is simple, soft-spoken and has a down-to-earth nature.
Controversies
In January 2016, Dattatreya was charged with abetting the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a student at the University of Hyderabad. Following allegations that he was instrumental in getting Vemula along with four other students suspended from the university's hostel, he was booked under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act. The previous August, he wrote a letter to Smriti Irani, the minister of Human Resource Development claiming the university had turned into a "den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics". Dattatreya denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he had received the letter from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and just forwarded it to Irani with his official letterhead. Other students of the university claimed that his letter was a "part of the larger discrimination of Dalit students".
