Yogendra Yadav

Some Lesser Known Facts About Yogendra Yadav

• Does Yogendra Yadav smoke?: Not Known

• Does Yogendra Yadav drink alcohol?: Not Known

• When he was 5, his name was changed to Yogendra from Salim because he was being bullied by Hindu children at his school.

• In an interview, on being asked the reason for his change of name, he said “My grandfather was a school headmaster. He was killed trying to stop a Muslim mob from entering the school. My father was seven years old then. He also witnessed another massacre during the Partition. It was after that he decided to give his children Muslim names.”

• He has been a professor of political science at Punjab University (1985-1993).

• He founded the Lokniti network in 1995-2000.

• He has been a political commentator on a number of channels and has analyzed elections on a number of television networks like Doordarshan, NDTV, and CNN-IBN.

• In 2004, he became a senior member of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).

• He acted as an advisor to Rahul Gandhi in 2009 elections.

• In 2010, he served as a member of the National Advisory Council for the implementation of the Right to Education Act.

• In July 2011, his appointment as a member of the UGC (University Grants Commission) was rejected by the  Ministry of Human Resource Development; as they considered his involvement with the political party AAP as a conflict in interest.

• When Yadav was ousted from the political party AAP in 2015 after the alleged Anti-Party Activities charges, Anna Hazare went on to meet Arvind Kejriwal for suggesting that Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan should not have been thrown out from the party. He advised him that the three should patch up and work together again. In 2017,  when Arvind Kejriwal was accused of corruption allegations, Anna Hazare showed his Disappointment towards AAP and Kejriwal.

• He is one of the founding members of Jai Kisan Andolan and Swaraj India.

• He has authored and co-authored many books like Electoral Politics in the Indian States, Democratic Politics – 1 (2006) Chief Advisor with Suhas Palshikar, published by NCERT, the State of Democracy in South Asia (2008) co-authored and co-edited (with Sandeep Shastri and KC Suri), etc. He also has few articles on his credits including “Between fortune and virtue: Explaining Congress’ Ambiguous Victory in 2009”, Principal State-level Contests and Derivative National Choices: Mapping Electoral Trends in India, “The paradox of political representation”, Seminar, October 2008, 2004-2009, Economic and Political Weekly, February 2009, etc.