The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Saturday, March 2. The elections, expected to be held in April or May this year, prompted the party to announce candidates for 51 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Kripashankar Singh has been named as the candidate from Jaunpur, marking what is considered a blow for former IAS officer Abhishek Singh, quite his job to enter politics. Reports suggest that Singh had been seeking a ticket from the BJP.
Abhishek Singh had been actively engaged in Jaunpur in recent days. He took people to see the Ram temple in Ayodhya and distributed scooters as prizes, which kept him consistently in the headlines. It was believed that after his tenure as an IAS officer, Abhishek Singh aimed to enter politics and contest elections on behalf of the BJP from Jaunpur. However, the BJP nominated Kripashankar Singh instead.
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Who Is Kripashankar Singh?
Kripa Shankar Singh, born into an ordinary farmer family in the Sahodarpur Gram Sabha of Jaunpur district, Uttar Pradesh, was appointed as the former Minister of State for Home of Maharashtra during the Congress government in 2004.
Moving to Mumbai at the age of 21, Kripa Shankar Singh worked as a lab assistant in a pharmaceutical company in 1972. He began his political career in 1977 with the Maharashtra Congress. Four years ago, influenced by the issue of the removal of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, he resigned from the Congress and joined the BJP.