After joining politics, Tripathi was instrumental in several large shifts of allegiance involving dozens of MPs, thus influencing the formation of several governments in Uttar Pradesh. He was a member of the Indian National Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was Minister of State for Institutional Finance in the Rajnath Singh-led BJP government in 2001, but was dismissed in December that year, after the kidnappers of Rahul Madesia, the 15-year-old son of a businessman in Basti in eastern Uttar Pradesh, told the police that Tripathi had provided them the bungalow in Lucknow from where they were arrested.