IIM graduate, ex-banker, ‘social worker’, MP aspirant: Saket Misra’s route to UP Legislative Council

The 52-year-old was recently nominated by the BJP to the Legislative Council, along with AMU Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoor (he resigned his V-C post Tuesday), and four BJP leaders.

Misra Senior is currently chairman of the construction committee of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, set up by the government for the building of the Ayodhya temple.

Saket Misra is an IIM Calcutta graduate. He was working with a bank when he gave it up “within a month” to focus on civil services, says he got into IPS but never joined it, worked abroad including in some prestigious banks for 18 years, and then decided to return home with the desire to do “social work”. (Express Photo)

After returning to India, Saket first started a firm dealing in private equity in the MSME sector in Delhi. Sources close to him say his heart, though, always lay in social service, underlining that it was not really politics that attracted him.

By 2017, when the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh with a comprehensive majority and Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister, Saket had started becoming a known face in Lucknow circles. As per sources, Adityanath was among the first senior people in the BJP that Saket called on, and the CM told him to focus on eastern UP.

Saket chose Shravasti district, where his maternal grandfather Badlu Ram Shukla’s home was, to make his start. Shukla was a five-term Lok Sabha MP from Bahraich.

Saket started with informal meetings and interactions with small groups of people, including BJP workers. Soon, the party started calling him to its organisational programmes, while the BJP young wing turned to him for its interactive events at colleges.

By 2018, Saket was a member of the BJP, and a year later, was appointed as an advisor to the Poorvanchal Vikas Board. His mandate was to advise the government on holistic development of eastern UP, covering around 27 districts.

Party leaders say he earned a lot of goodwill by using his contacts to arrange CSR funds, help develop smart classes in government schools in Balrampur, Deoria and Shrawasti districts, and arrange oxygen supply in hospitals during the second phase of Covid pandemic.

Sources in the BJP say that for his efforts, Saket hoped to get a BJP ticket from the Shravasti Lok Sabha constituency in 2019, but the party fielded Daddan Misra instead. The BJP lost to the BSP’s Ram Shiromani from the seat.

Saket is currently also adjunct faculty of finance at the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, run under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.