Keshav Prasad Maurya

Keshav Prasad Maurya is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and President of UP BJP. He has won the Indian general elections, 2014 from the Phulpur (Lok Sabha constituency).[1]

On 11 January 2016, 12 BJP party leaders were expelled from the party for attacking Maurya one week earlier in Ballia, and two other cases were filed against two more BJP leaders.[2]

On 8 April 2016, on the first day of Chaitra, he was declared Bharatiya Janata Party chief of Uttar Pradesh,[3] India's most populous state. Like his party's top leader - Prime Minister Narendra Modi - Mr Maurya sold tea in his youth at his father's stall in their village. A member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, he also participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

Born in 1969, in Sirathu in Kausambhi district, adjoining Allahabad, Mr. Maurya went on to study Hindi Literature at the Hindu Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad. Hailing from a humble farming family, Mr. Maurya sold tea and newspapers during his childhood, a detail that the BJP hopes to flaunt further.

The factors what went in his favour, party sources say, is his humble beginning, deep association with the Sangh and his OBC background. “Gareebi, Sangh aur OBC, the trajectory is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said a BJP leader, quite pleased by the likeness.

At 47, Mr. Maurya is relatively young and his full-timer karyakarta background is expected to boost the morale of the BJP-RSS cadre. His RSS upbringing will also provide “energy and help in connecting RSS cadre,” a senior BJP leader said. Since Mr. Maurya is an MP and “won’t have the burden of fighting elections in 2017, he will devote his time entirely to focus on winning the elections,” Mr. Chandramohan said, hailing him as an “aggressive leader.”

Though he keeps a low-profile and is not popular outside the Kausambhi-Allahabad-Varanasi belt, Mr. Maurya’s pro-Hindutva image and his promotion could be a sign of things to come. He has been associated with the RSS and the VHP-Bajrang Dal from an early age, holding the posts of Nagar Karyawah and VHP Pranth Sanghathan Mantri, among others. While being active in the gauraksha (cow-protection) movements, he also participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In the BJP, Mr. Maurya has been the regional (Kashi) coordinator of the backward class cell and the BJP Kisan Morcha.

His political career started out with defeats as he lost two consecutive Assembly elections, 2002 and 2007, but riding on a Modi wave secured the Phulpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 with a thumping five lakh votes and over 52 per cent votes from the erstwhile Nehru-Gandhi bastion.

(source- THE HINDU)

References

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