Jitan Ram Manjhi

Jitan Ram Manjhi Biography

Jitan Ram Manjhi is an Indian politician belonging to Janata Dal (United) party who currently serves as the current chief minister of Bihar. He assumed the charge of the chief minister on 20 May 2014 following the resignation of Nitish Kumar from the post. A senior member of the party, he has also been associated with Indian National congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal. He has been a cabinet minister of Nitish Kumar, handling the portfolio of scheduled castes and scheduled tribe’s welfare, before assuming the power as Chief Minister. He is active in state politics since 1980 and one of the prominent leaders of Bihar since then.

He belongs to Mahakar, Gaya district, born in the year 1944 in a lower class Dalit family. He briefly worked in Gaya telephone exchange after his education, before got actively involved in state politics. He actively joined politics in the year 1980 as a member of Indian National Congress. He contested state assembly elections the same year and got elected from Fatehpur constituency. After that he was associated with Indian National Congress for more than a decade and has served as a cabinet minister in ChandrashekharSingh, BindeshwariDubey, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Jagannath Mishra’s state government.   

In 1990, he lost state assembly elections and he joined Rashtriya Janata Dal. In 1996, following the split of the party he joined Rashtriya Janata Dal headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav and served under the party till 2005. Following RJD’s loss in 2005 assembly elections, he switched to JDU and still remains its active member. He was involved in a corruption scam of B. Ed degree racket and was asked to resign after his win in 2005 elections. But later he was inducted to the government freeing him of all charges.

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Updated: June 20, 2014