Hari Shankar Tiwari (1933 – 16 May 2023) was an Indian gangster and politician belonging to the Samajwadi Party from Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Tiwari was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from the village Tanda, Chillupar in Gorakhpur district.
Politics
Tiwari was the first gangster in Indian political history to have won elections from prison. Elected from Chillupar, he remained a member of the legislative assembly for years. Tiwari is known for his brahmin politics.
In 1997, he was founding member of Akhil Bharatiya Loktantrik Congress along with Jagdambika Pal, Rajeev Shukla, Shyam Sunder Sharma and Bacha Pathak.
Tiwari was a cabinet minister at the State Assembly in several governments, including the Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) government (2003–2007).
In 2000, he was the Stamp and Registration cabinet minister in Ram Prakash Gupta's government . In 2001, he was the cabinet minister in Rajnath Singh's government and also in year 2002, he was the cabinet minister in Mayawati's Government.
Personal life
His son Bhishma Shanker Tiwari, was Member of Parliament, Sant Kabir Nagar seat west of Gorakhpur.
Another son, Vinay Shankar Tiwari, stood from Gorakhpur but lost to Yogi Adityanath by a margin of votes. He also lost a runoff election from Ballia in 2007 by 130,000 votes. He was an MLA from Chillupar from 2018 to 2022.
Nephew Ganesh Shankar Pandey was a state legislator from Maharajganj. In 2010 he won the MLC election for the fourth consecutive time, and was the speaker of the legislative council.
Tiwari was succeeded by Rajesh Tripathi. After that Vinay Shankar Tiwari won again from the Chillupar constituency in the 17th Legislative Assembly of Gorakhpur. The latter however lost to Tripathi in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.
Tiwari died of kidney failure on 16 May 2023, at the age of 89.