An engineer, a spokesperson, a builder.

Origin

I'm from Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh — an adjacent district to Hardoi, in the same Awadh belt, where the same Kannauji dialect of Hindi is spoken. I went to NIT Karnataka (Surathkal) for B.Tech in Computer Engineering (2005 batch), then to IMS Law College for an LL.B.

I built a career in technology and media. I was at IBM and Informatica in early-career roles, then at PropTiger, then I built and ran my own media-tech companies — Blink CMS, Hocalwire Labs, and Admonnt. I've been on 500+ national television debates as a Congress spokesperson — on Times Now, ABP News, News18 India, NDTV, Republic, Aaj Tak / India Today, and others.

Sawajpur is ghar wapsi. Not as a tourist, but as someone who wants to do for the place what I spent a career doing for platforms: making it work better for the people who use it.

I am not fighting for power. I am fighting for progress. — Ashwani Mishra

Why Sawajpur specifically

• It's small enough to walk. Sawayajpur is the smallest of Hardoi's 5 tehsils by population — a constituency where a real door-to-door is physically possible.
• It's been taken for granted. The same MLA has held the seat since 2017. Congress got 4.59% in 2022. There's no structural ground game — but also no entrenched expectations to fight against.
• It needs the kind of work I do. Service-delivery measurement, public grievance systems, transparent dashboards, career-counselling platforms — these are software problems as much as governance problems.

What I am not

• I am not a career politician.
• I am not from Hardoi town specifically — I'm from Farrukhabad, the neighbouring district, in the same Awadh belt.
• I am not promising jobs for everyone. I can connect people to opportunities; I cannot employ them.