Sudesh Sharma was chairman of the Modinagar Nagar Palika from 2007 to 2012. He was then MLA for Modinagar through the 16th Assembly, from March 2012 to March 2017. He won the seat in 2012, carried the town’s questions into the House, and on 27 November 2022 joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Meerut. The record below is the work of those years.
A portrait from his public life.
2007
First Assembly election
He fought his first Assembly election from Modinagar, for the Indian National Congress. He polled 11,690 votes, 7.66 percent, and finished sixth. From that same year he was also chairman of the municipal board. The town did not send him to Lucknow that time. The work of the town stayed with him.
For five years he was chairman of the Modinagar Nagar Palika. Wards, roads, and the daily government of the town run from that chair. At the 2011 census this municipal board had 1,30,325 people and 26 wards. That was his charge before he reached the Assembly, and the town remained his ground afterwards.
2012
Elected from Modinagar
He was elected MLA from Modinagar for the Rashtriya Lok Dal. 58,635 votes, 33.08 percent. Rajpal Singh of the Bahujan Samaj Party finished second, 13,949 votes behind. Rajpal Singh had held the seat before him. Of 2,83,131 electors, 1,77,263 voted. Turnout was 62.6 percent.
From March 2012 to March 2017 he represented Modinagar in the 16th Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh. During that term he was a deputy leader in the House and took part in the Assembly’s examination of the Muzaffarnagar riots. He kept taking the town’s concerns to Lucknow, and he kept standing with people at public meetings.
At a public gathering.
2014
Dues of the mill workers
In February 2014 he raised in the Assembly the unpaid dues of workers at Modinagar’s closed Modi textile mill. The mills had shut in the 1980s. About twenty thousand people had once worked there. He told the House that about ₹60 crore was still owed to the workers. It was an old wound of the town, and he placed it on the floor of the House.
2017
Assembly election
He contested Modinagar again for the Rashtriya Lok Dal. 29,477 votes, 13.72 percent, fourth place. The seat passed to Dr. Manju Shiwach. He stayed in the contest, and at the next election his vote was far larger.
He stood for the Rashtriya Lok Dal in the Samajwadi Party–RLD alliance. 78,730 votes, 35.31 percent. It is the largest total of his four elections. He finished second, 34,619 votes behind Dr. Manju Shiwach. Even in defeat, his base in Modinagar was that large.
On 27 November 2022 he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Meerut. He entered as a former chairman and former MLA of Modinagar, and since then he has been present with public representatives and at the town’s programmes.