BHOPAL: After conquering Mt. Everest, young mountaineers in Madhya Pradesh are gearing up for a new conquest — electoral politics. Ratnesh Pandey, who successfully scaled Mt. Everest in 2016, and Megha Parmar who flew the Indian tricolour on the same highest peak in 2019, have joined politics within a span of 35 days — six months before the central Indian state goes to assembly elections.
A Satna district resident, Ratnesh Pandey, who has also successfully climbed Europe’s highest peak Mount Elbrus in 2018 and Iran’s highest peak Mount Damavand in September 2016 (four months after
successfully scaling Mt Everest) joined the ruling BJP on April 3.
He also holds a world record for his motorbike stunts Pandey, who in October 2020, had created history by mentoring a team of third genders from across the country to successfully climb the 17,353 ft high Friendship Peak in the Himalayas, is in the race for the saffron party ticket from Satna seat, which is presently held by Congress’s first time MLA Siddharth Kushwah.
The 28-year-old Megha Parma, who hails from MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s home district Sehore’s Bhojpur village, had successfully scaled Mount Everest in 2019. She joined the opposition Congress at the Nari Samman Rally in the presence of state Congress president Kamal Nath on Tuesday in Chhindwara district.
Megha, who has been the brand ambassador of PM Modi’s ambitious Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign in Madhya Pradesh since 2019, has reportedly had a close association with RSS’s student wing ABVP till a few days ago.
Opposition Congress sprung a surprise of sorts to the ruling BJP, as there were speculation about Megha being in the race for a ticket from BJP from the Ichchawar seat of her home Sehore district, as the saffron party was planning to field a fresh face from the seat presently held by its seven times sitting MLA and ex-minister Karan Singh Verma.