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Awadhesh Prasad
Office Member of Panel of Chairpersons (Lok Sabha)


Office Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
Office Cabinet Minister IN Uttar Pradesh


Term start Template:Start date








Born 1945-07-31 (age 81)
Born Bikapur, United Provinces, British India
(present-day Uttar Pradesh, India)





Political party Samajwadi Party
Spouse Template:Marriage
Children 7
Alma mater Lucknow University (LL.B, 1968)
DAV College, Kanpur, Agra University (M.A, 1966)



Awadhesh Prasad (born 31 July 1945) is an Indian politician who is a founding member of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and an MP in the 18th Lok Sabha representing Faizabad.[1][2] He is presently the general secretary of the national executive of SP and he was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly till 11 June 2024 when he was elected as an MP.[3] He has been a nine time MLA elected from the erstwhile Sohawal (SC) constituency in 1977, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2002 and 2007 and as of latest from Milkipur (SC) in 2012 and 2022.[4] He has become a minister for six times in the Government of Uttar Pradesh and been a cabinet minister in four of them.[1]

Political career

Prasad, who comes from Pasi Dalit community,[5] began his political career at the age of 21. He was the Ayodhya district co-convener of the anti-Emergency Sangarsh Samiti. He was also the polling agent of the Lok Dal at Amethi during the 1977 Indian general election. He became the national secretary and was inducted into the central parliamentary board when the Samajwadi Party was founded in 1992. In the party, he has generally functioned as an organisation man since then.[1]

He became minister in the Janata Party governments of Ram Naresh Yadav and Babu Banarasi Das and in the Samajwadi Party governments of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav.[1] He has a close association with the party president Akhilesh Yadav and was one of the few veteran leaders to have sided with him during the pre-2017 election leadership contest within the party.[3]

In the 2024 Indian general election Prasad won [6] as the Member of Parliament from the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency.[7] This win has been seen as of deep interest within the 2024 Indian general election because it encompasses the city of Ayodhya where resides the Ram Temple which was set-up in the previous term (2019-2024). Though, the BJP led from Ayodhya Assembly constituency, it failed to win the seat. Analysts credited his win to failure of BJP's Abki Baar 400 Paar slogan and Samajwadi Party's strategy of leveraging social politics by capitalizing on the significant OBC voter base, including Kurmis and Yadavs, aligning OBCs, Dalits, and Muslims to edge out the BJP.[5]

Electoral record

Legislative Assembly

Year Party Constituency Name Result Votes gained Vote share% Margin
1974 bgcolor=Template:Party color| BKD Sohawal Template:Lost 18,879 34.70% 689
1977 bgcolor=Template:Party color| JP Template:Won 28,090 58.42% 10,578
1980 bgcolor=Template:Party color| JP(S) Template:Lost 21,932 40.72% 4,071
1985 bgcolor=Template:Party color| LD Template:Won 27,373 46.29% 9,147
1989 bgcolor=Template:Party color| JD Template:Won 29,413 33.91% 10,032
1991 bgcolor=Template:Party color| JP Template:Lost 22,047 24.90% 9,643
1993 rowspan="7" bgcolor=Template:Party color| SP Template:Won 59,115 51.77% 16,496
1996 Template:Won 44,399 35.17% 3,407
2002 Template:Won 43,398 35.36% 8,156
2007 Template:Won 48,624 33.08% 9,871
2012 Milkipur Template:Won 73,804 42.24% 34,237
2017 Template:Lost 58,684 29.77% 28,276
2022 Template:Won 103,905 47.99% 13,338

Lok Sabha

Year Party Constituency Name Result Votes gained Vote share% Margin
1996 rowspan="2" bgcolor=Template:Party color| SP Akbarpur Template:Lost 169,046 27.12% 30,749
2024[8][9] Faizabad (Ayodhya) Template:Won 554,289 48.59% 54,567

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 [{{{url}}} For its Dalit outreach, SP puts forward Ayodhya leader with long party, electoral record]. The Indian Express(4 April 2023).
  2. Dalits | Voices from the margins(13 July 2024). Retrieved 22 March 2025.
  3. 3.0 3.1 [{{{url}}} SP propping up Awadhesh Prasad as its Dalit face ahead of LS polls?]. The Times of India.
  4. [{{{url}}} बार के विधायक, Mulayam के करीबी दलित नेता... कौन हैं Awadhesh Prasad, जिन्हें सपा ने Faizabad से बनाया लोकसभा प्रत्याशी]. Aaj Tak(31 January 2024).
  5. 5.0 5.1 What went wrong for BJP in Ayodhya? Decoding the political shocker. India Today.
  6. https://results.eci.gov.in/PcResultGenJune2024/candidateswise-S2454.htm
  7. Ayodhya, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Gonda seats results LIVE updates: SP leads in Ayodhya as BJP's Lallu Singh falls behind. Retrieved 4 Jun 2024.
  8. Faizabad Constituency Lok Sabha Election Result 2024(4 June 2024). Retrieved 31 May 2025.
  9. 2024 Loksabha Elections Results - Faizabad(4 June 2024). Retrieved 31 May 2025.