BJP's Brahmin face in UP is skill development, entrepreneurship minister

Mahendra Nath Pandey, who was made the Uttar Pradesh BJP chief after the party's success in the 2017 Assembly election, has been elevated as a Cabinet minister and allocated the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

 

In the previous government, he served as a minister of state for the HRD ministry, before being assigned the uphill task of galvanising the party's organisational set-up in UP in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

 

The 62-year-old, who scored his second consecutive parliamentary electoral victory from Chandauli, is highly qualified and holds a doctorate from BHU. Pandey was involved in student politics and served as the general secretary of the BHU students' body.

 

In 1991, Pandey entered the UP Assembly for the first time. He is acknowledged as a man of few words and one who has an ear for classical music and loves chess.