Dr. Pooja Shakun Pandey alias Annapurna Bharti of Niranjani Akhada is a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha and is often in the headlines for hate speech against Muslims. She assured herself a name in Hindutva’s Hall of Hate-Fame in February 2019 when she re-created the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in Aligarh. She was briefly arrested then and released soon after.
Pandey was also one of the infamous hate-mongers at Haridwar in December 2021. In February, 2022 Pandey spoke at Prayagraj and claimed that those speeches were in the interest of the safety of religious leaders. She also defended repeat offenders Narsinganand and Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi who were under arrest at the time. She was also in the news for comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he announced his government’s decision to repeal the three farm laws in the wake of a year-long protest by the farmers in Delhi and other parts of India.
She was also briefly arrested in April 2020 for making provocative comments against members of the Tablighi Jamaat. In March 2021, she had demanded a ban on Muslims from entering temples soon after a minor Muslim boy was beaten up by Hindutva activist Shringi Yadav for entering a temple in Dasna. She is regularly seen interacting with BJP party leaders like BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya and the Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. On June 7, 2022, a case was registered against her for likening Friday prayers (Jumma) to ‘Terrorism’.