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Who is Keshav Prasad Maurya?
Keshav Prasad Maurya is an Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who serves as the Deputy Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh. He is also an MP from the Phulpur parliamentary constituency of Prayagraj.
Maurya was born on May 7, 1969, in Kaushambi district to Dhanapati Devi and Late Shyamlal Maurya. His father was a farmer and had a tea shop in Sirathu Nagar and his mother is a housewife. Maurya has two brothers -- Sukh Lal and Rajendra Kumar and three sisters -- Sumitra Devi, Kamlesh Kumari and Asha Devi.
He got married in 1985 to Rajkumari Devi and the couple has two sons Ashish Kumar Maurya and Yogesh Kumar Maurya.
The politician attended junior high school in Sirathu Nagar and then secondary school in Osa. To support the family during the financial crisis, he used to sell newspapers and help his father at the tea stall. Later, he studied Hindi Literature at the Hindu Sahitya Sammelan in Prayagraj.
Career
Since 1980s, Keshav Prasad Maurya has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). He was instrumental during the cow-protection and Ram Janmabhoomi movements. He also led the group of Kar Sewak for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in 1990.
In 2012, Maurya was the first BJP MLA from Sirathu Tahseel. As BJP's Phoolpur MP, he headed the ministries of public works department (PWD), food processing, entertainment tax and public enterprises department.
He was elected as an MP from the Phulpur constituency in 2014, prior to that, he had contested the 2002, 2007 and 2012 assembly elections. Maurya was appointed the state president of BJP in UP in 2016. A year later, he became the deputy CM of the state.