Who is Upendra Singh Rawat, BJP MP who opted out of Lok Sabha elections?

BJP MP Upendra Singh Rawat.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Upendra Singh Rawat, who has been fielded from Barabanki again, said on Monday he will not contest any election till he is proven innocent over a viral obscene video which he has termed as fake.

“An edited video of mine that was generated through Deepfake AI technology is going viral. I have lodged an FIR in connection to the video. I have requested honourable BJP president for a probe. I will not contest any election until proven innocent,” Rawat said in an X post.

On the basis of a complaint by MP’s personal secretary Dinesh Chandra Rawat, an FIR has been lodged against an unknown accused, Kotwali police station in-charge Aditya Tripathi said.

Rawat joins Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh, who opted out as party candidate from Asansol in West Bengal following outrage after the Trinamool Congress targeted the BJP by saying that several songs performed by the actor and singer had lyrics comprising ‘lewd and uncivilised remarks about Bengali women’.

Who is Upendra Singh Rawat?

Rawat is a first time MP from Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. He replaced then sitting MP Priyanka Singh Rawat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He had defeated Samajwadi Party’s Ram Sagar Rawat by 1.10 lakh votes.

1. Born on January 17, 1969, Rawat holds a master’s degree in sociology and an LLB. He is an alumnus of JNPJ College in Barabanki, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University, Faizabad (now Ayodhya) and DAV Mahavidyalaya under Lucknow University.
2. Rawat was elected as a member of legislative assembly from Zaidpur in Barabanki in 2017. He remained an MLA till 2019 when he was fielded by the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha election.
3. Upendra Singh Rawat is a member of various parliament committees since 2019.
4. Last Saturday, Rawat was among the 195 candidates announced by the BJP in its first list for the Lok Sabha elections.

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