Keshav Prasad Maurya

On 8 April 2016, on the first day of Chaitra, he was appointed as the Bharatiya Janata Party chief of Uttar Pradesh.[1] A member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, he also participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.[1]Born in 1969, in Sirathu in Kausambhi district, adjoining Allahabad, Maurya went on to study Hindi Literature at the Hindu Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad.[2] The BJP's choice of Maurya as its Uttar Pradesh chief was the part of its strategy to woo non Yadav OBC communities in Uttar Pradesh. It was believed that choice of Maurya will bring support of Koeri community which is known by various surnames like Kushwaha, Shakya and Saini and is fourth largest politically organised community in UP after Yadavs, Jatavs among others.[3]

Maurya has been associated with the RSS and the VHP-Bajrang Dal from an early age, holding the posts of Nagar Karyawah and VHP Pranth Sanghathan Mantri, among others. While being active in the gauraksha (cow-protection) movements. He also participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In the BJP, Maurya has been the regional (Kashi) coordinator of the backward class cell and the BJP Kisan Morcha.[1]He has contested the 2002, 2007 and 2012 assembly elections and was the sitting MLA from Sirathu assembly constituency before getting elected as MP from the Phulpur seat in 2014 with a thumping five lakh votes and over 52 per cent votes.[2] On 18 March 2017, he was appointed as the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.[4]

He became the first MLA of BJP from Sirathu Tahseel in the year 2012. It was the first time when any MLA of BJP was elected from Sirathu Tahseel. And after two and half-year he became the MP from Phoolpur from BJP. He got the ministries of public works department (PWD), food processing, entertainment tax and public enterprises department.[5][6]