New Delhi: Even as the BJP raced to a resounding triumph in Madhya Pradesh, state minister and senior party leader Narottam Mishra was defeated in his constituency Datia, losing to the Congress’s Rajendra Bharti by 7,742 votes.
A prominent Brahmin face for the BJP, Mishra was the state’s home minister and virtually No. 2 to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The senior leader has, however, courted many controversies in his career.
Mishra piloted the anti-conversion bill in the MP assembly, and said after it was passed that he would oppose “any love that leads to jihad”.
In November 2020, he ordered action against the Netflix web series A Suitable Boy for a kissing scene in a temple. A few weeks later, he likened Congress President Sonia Gandhi to Kaikeyi from Ramayana.
Mishra cut his teeth in politics as a member of the BJP Yuva Morcha and went on to become a minister in the Babulal Gaur-led government in 2005. He has been part of every government since then, except for a few months in 2008-2009 when he unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections against Jyotiraditya Scindia in Guna.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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