On December 26, 2017, Shashank Mani was in Kanniyakumari as part of his Jagriti Yatra. He swam in the ocean for three kilometres emulating what Swami Vivekananda had done on the same day in 1892. “It was a thrilling moment,” said Mani.
Mani looks for inspiration among people and aims to inculcate in them the spirit of democracy. He hopes his victory in the Lok Sabha polls as a BJP candidate from the Deoria constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh will provide him with an opportunity to carry his mission forward. The first-time MP, who was educated at IIT Delhi and IMD Lausanne, served in the corporate world for several years travelling across the world before making the journey back home to promote entrepreneurship in Deoria. His grandfather, Surti Narayan Mani Tripathi, who had served as the district magistrate of Gorakhpur, was the founder of Gorakhpur University. His father, Lieutenant General (retd) Prakash Mani, who served in the Army for 40 years, was a two-term MP.
Connected with people at the grassroots level, Mani is often called maati ka laal (son of the soil). The 55-year-old MP, who started his mission at a village in Deoria, hopes to use his rich and diverse experience to be a change agent in the 18th Lok Sabha.