on March 15, BJP Lakhimpur Kheri MP Ajay Kumar Mishra shared an unstarred question with Congress’ Tiruchirappalli MP Su. Thirunavukkarasar. In a question asked to the then Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel, it was written: “Is it true that there has been huge damage [farmer] Protesters and many prized antiquities and valuables have been damaged and missing during the attack on the Red Fort on January 26, 2021.
A few days later, on 24 March, Mishra asked another unstarred question, this time to the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology: “Is the government considering enacting any strict laws against those who spread propaganda on social media and incite violence against the country? Is. In the name of farmers movement…
Two questions from Parliament, along with a recent video of Mishra, who is now minister of state for home in the Narendra Modi-led cabinet, where he is seen threatening farmer protesters, offer early clues to the tension that continues to escalate. until it exploded on October 3, when a convoy of cars, including one of Mishra’s vehicle, rammed into a group of farmer protesters, killing four of them. The minister’s driver and two BJP workers were killed in the violence that followed. A journalist was also among the dead.
Since then a spiraling chain of events – nationwide outrage over the killings, Congress taking on the BJP over the killings, filing of an FIR against Mishra’s son Ashish alias Monu, and the Supreme Court taking suo moto cognizance of it – Lakhimpur Kheri and its two Bar MP Ajay Kumar Mishra has been kept in the headlines.
Twice became MP ‘Teni Maharaj’
Mishra, 61, who began his political career in the Lakhimpur Kheri Zilla Parishad in 2010 before becoming a BJP office-bearer and later district general secretary, was elected MLA in 2012. In 2014, he was elected to the Lok Sabha and re-elected. in 2019.
Nicknamed “Teni Maharaj”—’Maharaj’ was a nod to his upper-caste status—Misra’s Patel was Ramkumar Verma, a BJP Kurmi leader and former Nighasan MLA who had switched to the BSP in 2012. After Verma switched to BSP, Mishra contested that year’s election from Nighasan on a BJP ticket and won.
A senior says, “It was the moment he became a star for the BJP as Nighasan was the only seat out of the nine assembly seats in Lakhimpur Keri in 2012 that the BJP won.” Samajwadi Party The leader said the victory later paved the way for Mishra to have a Lok Sabha seat.
“Because he was the only BJP MLA from the district, he was given ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. And the Modi wave in that election was such that even if the BJP had brought down the idol, it would have won. There are many such MPs here – they are not even known outside their districts or their villages,” says a senior Congress leader in Lakhimpur Kheri.
Mishra’s victory broke Lakhimpur Kheri’s established tradition of sending Kurmi candidates to Parliament. He was the first Brahmin to win the seat – since 1962, the seat has at least nine MPs from the OBC community.
Despite being a two-time MP, Mishra was never on the party’s national scene until his surprise selection in the Union Cabinet in July. State BJP leaders admit that he was also not very active in state politics, confined himself largely to Lakhimpur Kheri, consolidating his hold on the region through the cooperative sector. Mishra was the Vice-Chairman of the District Co-operative Bank Limited in Lakhimpur Kheri from 1999-2002.
An enduring question about Mishra’s political career is that it led largely to the local Kheri politician, who had never even been a minister in UP, directly into the Union Cabinet. In the Modi government’s July cabinet expansion, Mishra surprised many when he was chosen as the only Brahmin face of UP, ahead of other known stalwarts of the community.
“Kisi ko nahi pata kaise hua (No one knows how it happened),” says a Lakhimpur Kheri BJP leader on Mishra’s induction into the Union Cabinet.
popular in his village
In Nighasan block and Banveerpur, Mishra’s ancestral village that is around 100 km from the district headquarters, the slogans are everywhere: “Nighasan janta ki pukaar, Monu bhaiyya ab ki baar.”
The slogan is an undisputed claim for an election ticket for Mishra’s younger son Ashish, who is now facing a murder FIR in the October 3 case. But the events of the last few days have strengthened the villagers’ kinship with Mishra and his family.
“Teniji (Mishra) has always been there in times of crisis. He intervenes in land disputes and resolves them,” says pradhan Akash Mittal, 32, who recently won the panchayat election as an independent candidate.
Villagers say that Mishra’s father Ambika Prasad had migrated from Kanpur and settled in the village in the 1950s. Both Prasad and Mishra’s elder brother Umesh, who died about 15 years ago, have been pradhans in the past.
Mishra, who holds B.Sc and LLB degrees from Christ Church College and DAV College, Kanpur, is married to Pushpa Mishra. Besides Ashish, a BSc graduate, the couple has two other children – 37-year-old Abhimanyu, a doctor who runs a clinic in Lakhimpur Kheri, and daughter Rashmi, who works as a clerk in the Lakhimpur Kheri Urban Co-operative Bank.
According to his election affidavit filed for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mishra’s movable assets, excluding his wife, are Rs 1.93 crore and immovable assets are Rs 1.20 crore. The family owns two houses and a rice mill in Banveerpur village, a two-storey bungalow in Lakhimpur Kheri and two petrol pumps. Mishra is the third of four brothers in the business of supplying food grains with Umesh Mishra the eldest and Vijay the youngest.
In the past few days, there have been allegations, including BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, of how Mishra allegedly earned his initial money by engaging in illegal business activity in Nepal – his village in Lakhimpur Kheri, only 15 km from the border.
Mishra, however, dismisses these as “false allegations” being spread by his opponents because of the “social work” done by him in the region.
According to Mishra’s affidavit filed for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a criminal appeal is pending before the Allahabad High Court in a murder case filed against him in 2000, when he was charged with the murder of Samajwadi Party youth activist Prabhat Gupta. Was. In February 2018, the HC had reserved the verdict in criminal appeal.
The village of 9,000 people, mostly members of the Rana community (who fall in the general category but seek Scheduled Caste status) also has a few Sikh houses on the periphery. Villagers say that the MP has cordial relations with the community. “About a year ago, the houses of some Sikh families were marked as forest land by the forest department. They came to Teniji, and he told them to go home, don’t worry. And the issue was resolved,” says Packarma Prasad, a farmer.
Baljinder Singh, who is working on his farm in a neighboring village, says, “There was never any dispute with the MP. We have invited her to all Sikh weddings… She is a popular figure here.” Singh declined to talk further.
Inputs by Harikishan Sharma
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