Former union minister Kalraj Mishra won't contest LS elections

Deoria, Mar 21: Senior BJP leader and former union minister Kalraj Mishra will not contest Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh's Deoria.

Kalraj Mishra, said, "I will not contest elections this time, I have been given a lot of other responsibilities by the party so my time will be devoted to that."

Mishra is former Minister of state (independent charge) of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises from 26 May 2014 to 2nd of September 2017 in the BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Subsequently, seventy-seven-year-old Kalraj Mishra was appointed as the head of the parliamentary standing committee on defence replacing former Uttarkhand chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri.

He was a member of Rajya Sabha and a MLA from Lucknow East assembly constituency. He was also President of Uttar Pradesh state unit of the BJP.

As a minister, he handled the state public works department in the BJP-BSP government that came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 1997.

A prominent Brahmin leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mishra is known for his strong organisational skills and soft-spoken nature and claims to have helped mobilise kar sevaks ahead of the Babri Masjid demolition.