Former IIMA professor to contest UP polls on SP ticket

Abhishek Mishra, 34, a former assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), will be contesting the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh from Lucknow (north) constituency. His candidature was announced on Saturday by Akhilesh Yadav, president of Samajwadi Party’s UP unit. Akhilesh Yadav is the son of party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Mishra taught Business Policy at the IIMA when he resigned about a year back to join politics. Sources in the IIMA said that before joining the premier B-school of the country, Mishra was an IPS officer.  “But he left the IPS and went to UK where he got his PhD from Cambridge University. He used to teach Business Policy when he was here at the institute,” an IIMA source said.

Educated in convent schools all through, Mishra did his schooling at St Francis College, Lucknow; St Joseph’s School in Nainital and, later, at DPS, RK Puram in New Delhi.  He did his Master’s in management from Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, UK, with specialisation in Global Marketing & International Finance.

After completing his M. Phil in Management Studies from Cambridge University, he earned a PhD in Strategy and Marketing from the same university in 2005. His father, Jai Shankar Mishra, is a UP-cadre IAS officer currently posted in Mumbai.

Sources at IIMA said Mishra has chosen Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP over the Congress perhaps because he feels, as a strategist, that the focus of development should be on India's villages. He feels that Mulayam Singh Yadav gives priority to rural areas, the sources said.