[1][2] Nanaji was born on 11 October 1916 into a Marathi-speaking Deshastha Rigvedi Brahmin family[3][4] at Kadoli, which is a small town in the Hingoli district, Maharashtra.

[7] Deshmukh became inspired by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his nationalist ideology, as well as showing an acquired interest in social service and activities.

[10][11] When in 1947, the RSS decided to launch two journals (Rashtradharma and Panchjanya) as well as a newspaper, Swadesh, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee was assigned the responsibility of the editor and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was made the Margdharshak with Nanaji as the managing director.

[12] Mahatma Gandhi's assassination led to the imposition of a ban on the RSS and publication work came to a grinding halt.

A different strategy was adopted keeping the ban in mind and Deshmukh was the brain behind underground publication work by the RSS those days.

[14] Nanaji Deshmukh was given the charge of Bharatiya Jan Sangh in Uttar Pradesh as General Secretary.

Deshmukh's groundwork was a great help in strengthening Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) at the grass roots.

By 1957, BJS had established its units at each and very district in Uttar Pradesh and credit for this goes to Nanaji who had extensively travelled all over the state and put in a lot of hard work.

Lohia and Deshmukh's association led to the first non-Congress coalition government in Uttar Pradesh after the 1967 state elections.

[17] Later, Morarji Desai, who became the Prime Minister heading the Janata Party Government offered him the Cabinet portfolio of Industry, but Deshmukh spurned the overture.

Deshmukh had won in the 1977 election held after revocation of the Emergency with a comfortable margin from Balrampur Lok Sabha constituency of Uttar Pradesh.