LUCKNOW: Today,
Navendu Mishra
, 34, might be celebrating his second stint in the House of Commons, but his childhood was far humbler than one might expect playing cricket and flying kites in the narrow alleys of Kanpur and Gorakhpur along with his siblings and friends.
Mishra – elected to the House of Commons in the UK for a second time in a row from the
Stockport constituency
– was born in Kanpur in 1989.
His mother’s paternal home is in Gorakhpur, while father hails from Kanpur’s Arya Nagar. His cousin Himanshu Mishra in Kanpur is a doctor at Shivrajpur community health centre and uncle Prabhat Ranjan Mishra was an engineer at a private company in Mumbai.
As the news of
Labour Party
’s Keir Starmer ending the 14-year rule of Conservatives flashed on television, there were celebrations thousands of kilometres away in Kanpur and Gorakhpur, with Mishra’s friends and relatives celebrating the historic mandate by distributing sweets and bursting crackers.
Talking to reporters, Mishra’s maternal uncle Nilendar Pandey, a social worker and businessman in Lucknow, said: “The Mishra family migrated to the UK with his parents when he was just four years old.” His father was a marketing manager for Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited and shifted to the UK after taking charge of a British company.
The British parliamentarian, who now lives in Brinnington and is among 19 PIO MPs in the Labour Party, was privately educated at Clifton College in Bristol before studying at the University of Hull and Keele University.
Before entering politics, Mishra worked as a shop-floor trade unionist in Stockport, and later became an organiser for the trade union Unsion, where he organised care workers in precarious employment.
He was elected to the House of Commons in the 2019 elections on a Labour Party ticket from Stockport, the seat previously held by Ann Coffey, who had left the Labour Party to join Change UK.
In 2021, Mishra had tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament on the rise of anti-Indian racism, saying, “Discrimination and racism against anyone should never be tolerated. The government must act and urgently update its Hate Crime Action Plan and launch a proper strategy to deal with this form of racism.”
Pandey claimed that he shares a close bond with the UK MP who called him up soon after winning the polls.
“We share a good bond and Mishra has not forgotten his roots. He loves visiting India once every year or two and never misses a chance to visit his relatives from Gorakhpur and Kanpur.” Mishra last visited his family home in Arya Nagar two years ago.
Pandey said Mishra is a vegetarian and loves home-cooked food common in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Talking about the UK MP’s childhood, Pandey said that he loved flying kites and playing cricket in the streets with other children, including his two sons and daughter.
During a recent visit to India, Mishra had led a delegation to meet Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel and also met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi.
Pandey said he has extended an invitation to his nephew to visit India soon and he has already planned a grand welcome for him.
