Who is Ghanshyam Lodhi?

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi won the Lok Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur by defeating Samajwadi Party’s Mohd Asim Raja with a margin of 42,000 votes, state district magistrate Ravindra Kumar told PTI on Sunday.  

“I dedicate my victory to the workers of the party. They have been working continuously day and night. I want to thank the people of Rampur,” Lodhi said, adding that he aims to serve the people and work as their “chowkidar”.

Lodhi, who joined the BJP this year, said that the party has “always been working for development of the public.”

Meanwhile, in Azamgarh, BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav, popularly known as Nirahua, defeated SP’s Dharmendra Yadav, the cousin of the party’s president, Akhilesh Yadav. 

Praising the BJP’s performance in the bypolls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter: “The by-poll wins in Azamgarh and Rampur are historic. It indicates wide-scale acceptance and support for the double engine Governments at the Centre and in UP. Grateful to the people for their support. I appreciate the efforts of our Party Karyakartas.”

Who is Ghanshyam Lodhi?

OBC leader Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi is a former MLC, who began a career in politics with the BJP in 1998, but switched sides several times before returning to the saffron party. 

He represented Kalyan Singh’s Bharat Kranti Party between 2004 and 2009. 

Later that year, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Rampur as a candidate of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), but came third.

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In 2016, Lodhi was elected as a member of the UP Legislative Council from the Rampur-Bareilly local constituency. He contested as an SP candidate, and was close friends with the party’s founding member, Azam Khan.

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In January 2022, the 59-year-old joined the BJP. He asked for an MLC polls ticket but the party refused.