Rahimi was elected as member of the Parliament of Iran from his province of birth Kurdistan in Legislative election of 1980 as a member of Islamic Republican Party. He was in Parliament until 1992 when he resigned from his seat. He held many positions when he was an MP such as head of arts commission and a member of foreign policy commission. Then he was appointed governor of the Kurdistan Province in August 1993 by then-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and was in office until August 1997 when Mohammad Khatami was elected as new president and named new governors. Rahimi was not in Khatami's list of governors. During his governorship, he firstly met Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.