Want to represent ex-servicemen in UP house, says SP’s Cantt candidate
LUCKNOW:: Major Ashish Chaturvedi, 44, a third-generation army man in his family has just turned a first-generation politician.
The Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav has fielded him as the party’s Lucknow Cantt assembly by-poll candidate.
Commissioned into the army’s 11 Gorkha Rifles regiment in 2000, Major Chaturvedi took retirement in 2006, the stint in which he claims he killed seven Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) insurgents in encounters in Jammu and Kashmir.
“After retiring from the army, I thought of doing more in life in the form of social service. I began working for ex-servicemen, servicemen, their families, and army widows. I formed the Ex-servicemen federation of Uttar Pradesh in 2011 and filed public interest litigation (PIL) in the High Court seeking an exemption in house tax for the ex-servicemen and their families. The case is on.
This gave me my first major recognition after I came into civilian life,” said Major Chaturvedi, whose maternal grandfather and his father have also served the army.
“My father and I were in the same regiment, the 11 Gorkha. Param Vir Chakra (posthumous) Manoj Pandey of Lucknow is also from the same regiment, which has its regimental centre in Lucknow,” he said.
When asked when and how he made this move towards politics?, he said: “When I was struggling for ex-servicemen, the bureaucracy did not treat us well on several occasions. We felt bad. It was then some people who worked with me suggested that I should get into politics.
I had been meeting SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for the issues of ex-servicemen and other social issues. A couple of months back I expressed the intention of joining politics with him as I found him and his works well-meaning. He said, Okay, we will field you. He just
› My father and I were in the same regiment, the 11 Gorkha. Param Vir Chakra (posthumous) Manoj Pandey of Lucknow is also from the same regiment, which has its regimental centre in Lucknow ASHISH CHATURVEDI, Major
said it then and there. I thought, maybe, it was just a casual comment, but when a couple of weeks back I was told that I will be the party’s Lucknow Cantt candidate, I was pleasantly surprised.”
Ashish whose nomination has been accepted has begun doing meetings with the party’s organisational structure in the constituency.
“But I will launch my full-blown campaign from Thursday onwards,” he said while insisting that he was here to stay in politics irrespective of the poll outcome.
Samajwadi Party never won this seat.
BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi held the seat which fell vacant following her resignation when she got elected to the Lok Sabha from Allahabad seat in 2019 polls.
“I know, I will win. I am getting a lot of support. There is no one to represent the ex-servicemen in 500 plus combined strength of legislators in UP legislature,” he said.
He claimed that he once held an antiterrorism demonstration in Lucknow where he burnt the effigy of LeT chief Hafiz Sayeed. “Soon after the LeT issued a life threat to me. I challenged them back through my statements. Since then I am also referred to as ‘Shere-Awadh’ the title one Delhi-based organisation conferred on me,” he revealed.