Who is Ram Ratan Sharma? A forgotten hero of Bharatiya Janata Party

Lucknow: Not many people remember Ram Ratan Sharma, not even the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was the one who was elected to Lok Sabha on the ticket of Jan Sangh (the erstwhile BJP) and that too at the time when the saffron outfit had just two members in the lower house of the parliament.

Sadly, he is forgotten, if not fully by the population of Bundelkhand from where he hailed but entirely by his party which failed to post a word of condolence when he died at the ripe age of 90 few days ago.

Ram Ratan Sharma, a known name in the politics of Bundelkhand, was elected on Banda-Chitrakoot seat of Lok Sabha in 1971 braving the odds which were undoubtedly in the favour of Congress and the then mass leader Indira Gandhi . BJP patriarch Atal Behari Vajpayee had recognised his contribution then and had offered him his residence in New Delhi.

Originally belonged to Banda in Uttar Pradesh, Sharma, a person of high integrity with a keen sense of social service, was hailed as doyen of Bundelkhand politics and it could well be understood that how popular he must have been that time that he won the Lok Sabha seat in Congress Sunami.

He had worked with Atal, Advani and even Narendra Modi but his family members, five sons, are sore about the fact that no senior leader from BJP bothered to pay condolences as his last rites had taken place in Banda after he breathed his last at Kanpur.

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