Ashok Kumar Rawat: BJP Candidate To Retain Misrikh Constituency (image: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100034904363708)

Ashok Kumar Rawat is a BJP leader and currently serves as the parliamentarian representing Uttar Pradesh’s Misrikh consituency. As the BJP declared the first list of its candidates for the general elections on March 2, Ashok Kumar Rawat retained the BJP ticket in the Misrikh Lok Sabha seat.

A Dalit leader, Ashok Kumar”s political entry was through the BSP by winning the Misrikh seat in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. In 2009, he retained the seat. But, vying for a third term, he suffered defeat from the BJP”s Anju Bala by a margin of 87,363 votes.

However, in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Ashok Kumar Rawat managed to retrieve the seat under the BJP ticket. He won the Misrikh seat by defeating the BSP candidate Neelu Satyarthi by a margin of 1,00,672 votes.

Ashok Kumar Rawat was one among the three Dalit leaders shifted to BJP from BSP ahead of 2019 elections and won. The BJP realised that for getting edge in the Uttar Pradesh”s 17 reserved constituencies, they need to seize the BSP’s pool of Dalit leaders.

During his period as a parliamentarian, he served as a member of various committees including committee on Public Accounts, committee on welfare of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes and committee on Chemicals and Fertilizers.

In 2017, BSP supremo Mayawati suspended Ashok Kumar Rawat and his brother Manish Kumar for “anti-party activities”. Meanwhile, Ashok Kumar stated that Mayawati had asked him to pay Rs 20 lakh as donation to the party.

The Misrikh constituency belonged to Sitapur district and is known for the birthplace of the great Hindu Sage Dadhichi. Misrikh is a seat reserved for Scheduled Castes.