BJP's Ravi Kishan: Bhojpuri Actor In Poll Fray (image:facebook.com/ravikishanshukla)
Ravindra Kishan Shukla, popularly known as Ravi Kishan is the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate contesting in the 2024 General Elections from Uttar Pradesh”s Gorakhpur. The Bhojpuri actor is seeking a second term from the Gorakhpur seat, a bastion of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who represented the constituency five terms till 2017. Adityanath resigned his 21-year association with the seat in order to take reign as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on 21 September 2017.
Ravi Kishan is the incumbent MP from Gorakhpur. The actor-turned-politician started his political career with the Congress by contesting from Jaunpur constituency in the 2014 general elections. In the first electoral battle, he secured sixth position. In February 2017, Kishan left Congress and joined BJP. In the next general elections, the saffron party granted Gorakhpur ticket to Kishan in order to retrieve the seat from Samajwadi Party (SP), who won the seat in 2017 by-polls. Kishan emerged victorious by contesting against SP’s Ram Nishad and Congress’ Madhusudan Tripathi by bagging more than 7 lakh votes.
Ravi Kishan started his acting career in 1992 through a Hindi language action film ‘Pitambar’. Apart from Bhojpuri and Hindi films, he also appeared in a few Telugu, Kannada and Tamil films. In this election year, Kishan appeared in acclaimed Hindi language comedy drama movie Laapataa Ladies, essaying the role of Inspector Shyam Manohar. JNU: Jahangir National University, a movie sparked debate on social media with criticising its ‘propaganda” motives, was another movie of Kishan released this year. Besides, he has made appearance in web series, and television shows. In 2006, he came second in Bigg Boss, an Indian TV reality show.
The 2024 General election is a second experiment in Ravi Kishan”s political career. The BJP is foreseeing a comfortable win for Kishan in his second consecutive term from party’s stronghold. In the election battleground, he is pitted against SP’s Kajal Nishad, a Bhojpuri actress.
(This story is part of a Timeline. internship project.)
