Akash Mehta, CEO and global spokesperson of the party Plurals, has his roots in the BJP.
New Delhi: Akash Mehta, the CEO and global spokesperson of Plurals, has his roots in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Plurals is a new outfit which was recently launched by Pushpam Priya Chaudhury, the daughter of Vinod Chaudhury, a Janata Dal United (JDU) leader from Bihar’s Darbhanga district.
The Sunday Guardian has learnt that Akash Mehta, who is assigned to perform the role of global spokesperson of Plurals, is the son of Sunil Mehta, a BJP leader, and former Mayor of the Gohana Municipal Corporation.
Saraswati Padmanabhan, who is also a founding member of the newly-formed outfit Plurals, was appointed the national spokesperson of the party. The social media profile of Padmanabhan claims that she is currently associated with the Tata Trust.
“Saraswati Padmanabhan and Akash Mehta are Plurals’ national and global spokesperson respectively. They are also responsible for national and international partnerships for Bihar 2020-2030,” the statement of Plurals on the appointment of office bearers, reads.
The Sunday Guardian has also gathered information that Akash Mehta, who completed his graduation from Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), has been associated with Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh’s (RSS) students’ wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and was also elected as president of the SRCC students’ union.
Mehta’s social media profile reveals that he has also been associated with several ministries in the Haryana government and the Central government, including the Piyush Goyal led Ministry of Railways as an intern. Mehta has also done an internship with RBI’s deputy governor Mukesh Jain. Mehta on his social media platform describes that he is inspired by BJP leaders, including Arun Jaitley and Anurag Thakur.
Although the formation of a new political outfit is not surprising in a country like India, which has so far 2,293 political parties registered with the election commissions, the announcement of Plurals, ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls that are to be held later this year, attracted huge attention due to the extravagant advertisements given in almost every news daily in Bihar on the day of its launch.
Since the launch of her political outfit and declaring herself as a prospective chief ministerial candidate of Bihar, Priya Chaudhury has become an overnight sensation in the state. Priya Chaudhury claims of having done a double MA—one in Development Studies from the University of England’s Institute of Development Studies and another in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
However, many political experts are still guessing the move of Priya Chaudhury who is yet to come up with a detailed political roadmap of her outfit, but sources close to Priya Chaudhury said that a proxy game plan is being charted out for bigger political gains in Bihar where BJP, JDU, and RJD are three strong players in the field.