Hari Shankar Tiwari

Hari Shankar Tiwari (5 August 1933 – 16 May 2023) was an Indian gangster and criminal turned politician. Tiwari was a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly from the village Tanda, Chillupar in Gorakhpur district.

Tiwari was a cabinet minister at the State Assembly in several governments.

In 1997, he became the Transport minister in the Kalyan Singh government. In 2000, he was the Stamp and Registration cabinet minister in BJP's Ram Prakash Gupta's government. In 2001, he was appointed Science and Technology minister in Rajnath Singh government. In 2002, he was the cabinet minister in Mayawati's Government. He served as a minister also in the Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) government (2003–2007).

Personal life Tiwari Hata in Gorakhpur was the official residence of Harishankar Tiwari. His son Bhishma Shankar Tiwari, was Member of Parliament, Sant Kabir Nagar seat west of Gorakhpur.

Another son, Vinay Shankar Tiwari, stood from Gorakhpur but lost to Yogi Adityanath by a margin of votes. He also lost a runoff election from Ballia in 2007 by 130,000 votes. He was an MLA from Chillupar from 2018 to 2022.

Nephew Ganesh Shankar Pandey was a state legislator from Maharajganj. In 2010 he won the MLC election for the fourth consecutive time, and was the speaker of the legislative council.

Tiwari was succeeded by Rajesh Tripathi. After that Vinay Shankar Tiwari won again from the Chillupar constituency in the 17th Legislative Assembly of Gorakhpur. The latter however lost to Tripathi in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election.

Tiwari died of kidney failure on 16 May 2023, at the age of 89.

Positions held From To Position Party 1. 1985 1989 MLA (1st term) from Chillupar IND 2. 1989 1991 MLA (2nd term) from Chillupar INC 3. 1991 1993 MLA (3rd term) from Chillupar INC 4. 1993 1996 MLA (4th term) from Chillupar INC 5. 1996 2002 MLA (5th term) from Chillupar AIIC(T) 6. 2002 2007 MLA (6th term) from Chillupar ABLTC

Note: He also contested from same seat in 2007 and 2012, but lost.