Anurag Sharma: Industrialist To Ace Jhansi Seat Again (image: twitter.com/AnuraagJhansi)
For industrialist Anurag Sharma, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for were his political debut. When sitting MP and then Union Minister Uma Bharati chose to opt out of the contest, the BJP fielded Anurag Sharma for Uttar Pradesh”s Jhansi constituency, and he won the seat with a record win. So by fielding the sitting MP again in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the party is expressing confidence in Anurag Sharma.
In the 2019 elections, Anurag Sharma defeated Samajwadi Party candidate Shyam Sundar Singh by a margin of 3,65,683 votes. Meanwhile, Congress candidate Shiv Sharan Kushwaha came in a distant third. His victory also marked a record margin win by a candidate for the Jhansi Lok Sabha seat. In the 2014 election, Umar Bharti won by a margin of 1,900,467 votes.
In 2022, Anurag Sharma was elected International Treasurer of the Parliamentary Association Conference (CPA) at the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in Halifax, Canada.
Anurag Sharma, the managing director of Baidyanath, an Ayurvedic firm, ventured into politics after his successful tryst at the family-run business. However, politics is not an alien field for him. His father, Pandit Vishwanath Mishr, was a two-time parliamentarian; he once represented Jhansi on the Congress ticket and then Hamirpur on the BJP ticket. Anurag Sharma is now taking forward the political legacy of his father. Besides, he earned support from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as well.
Anurag Sharma is part of the “Bundelkhand Ekikaran Samiti” which works for the creation of a separate Bundelkhand state. Jhansi is part of the Bundelkhand region. While facing an election in 2019, when the media asked about his views on the separate state as a BJP candidate, he said, “We will have to work towards it but it is an uphill task. I realise that because we have to take parts from two states and assemble them into one whole state,” The New Indian Express reports. Though Anurag Sharma expressed commitment for the cause at that time, even now, Bundelkhand state remains a distant dream.
The Jhansi parliamentary constituency, including both Jhansi and Lalitpur districts, is commonly referred to as the Jhansi-Lalitpur Lok Sabha seat. Jhansi had given chances to Congress and the BJP to represent the constituency twice and the Samajwadi Party once between 1999 and 2019.
