IIM prof turns candidate,stays manager

Mishra has a PhD in strategy and marketing from Cambridge. He has served the Home and Defence ministries as their consultant for the Sixth Pay Commission and trained batches of IAS and IPS officers,apart from working with various multinationals.

Now that he has quit his IIM job and finds himself facing challenges entirely new,he still banks on management principles already tried. He began with a signature campaign to list the ten most serious issues in each locality. “For example,we found that over a thousand signatories wanted an over-bridge over Daliganj railway crossing,which frequently faces jams.” The issue now tops the list of promises he has prepared.

“As of now,these data are only on paper. But soon,we will digitise these data and use that as a readymade database to chalk out local development strategies once the party comes to power,” he says.

That is when,he believes,his experience in management will come into play in the real sense. “My management skills lie in optimising the available resources and matching the right man for the right job — there I am far superior to others,” says Mishra.

Contesting for the first time,Mishra is pitted against Ashutosh Tandon aka Gopalji — son of the BJP’s Lucknow MLA Lalji Tandon — besides businessman-turned-BSP-politician Arun Dwivedi and Congress candidate Neeraj Bora.

Mishra’s “quiet,meditative life” has become a “hectic,active public life” overnight. He starts his day at 7.30am,briefly flips through the newspapers instead of “leisurely reading at least four English news dailies” as he used to,then jumps into the car to campaign from door to door. The day invariably goes past midnight but Mishra is “enjoying the experience”.

Even before venturing into active politics,Mishra had been advising Akhilesh Yadav,with whom he is close,on various strategic issues. His father Jai Shankar Mishra,an IAS officer,is known to have been close with Akhilesh’s father Mulayam.

Party says Akhilesh Mishra has played a key role in some of the recent strategic moves the party has undertaken,from selecting the right survey agency for feedback from the ground to English advertisements on Mulayam’s birthday.

“I have known Akhilesh bhaiya for a couple of years,” says Mishra,“He had been brainwashing me to join politics for one year.” Mishra believes it is time Indian politics saw a change in its structure and “young,educated professionals joined politics to serve the society better”.

“I have always been a niche product,interacting with a smaller section of people as an academician. I wanted to reach out and empower a larger section of people and give back to the society,because of which I decided to switch careers and join politics,” says Mishra.

Mishra says the Samajwadi Party is the “only party in the state that does not have a crisis of leadership”,with “a clear cut line of youth leadership in Akhilesh bhaiya and an experienced leader in Netaji.”

Helping Mishra is his team of friends,some from the IIM,others from various professional backgrounds,who have either left their jobs or taken a long leave to campaign. “With all this support,if I can’t risk a change of career and venture into politics,who can,” says Mishra. Whatever the outcome of the poll,“I am in politics to stay”.