Jagannath Mishra

Jagannath Mishra (24 June 1937 – 19 August 2019) was an Indian politician who served as Chief Minister of Bihar and as Minister in the Union Cabinet.

He first became Chief Minister in 1975 but was brought down due to emergency.

Mishra supported and practiced populism, and had earned popularity among the teachers by taking over hundreds of private primary, middle and high schools across the state in 1977.

After leaving Congress, he joined the Nationalist Congress Party and later the Janata Dal (United).

He was also referred to as "Maulana" Jagannath because of his clout with the Muslims that he had earned by making Urdu the second official language of the state in 1980.

He became Chief Minister for the second time in the year 1980 and for third time in the year 1989.

He was succeeded by Lalu Prasad Yadav of Janata Dal.

He also served as Union Cabinet Minister several times.

Using the office of Bihar Chief Minister, Jagannath Mishra established himself as the tallest leader of his time.

On 23 July 1983, he made a two-hour statement in the Bihar State Assembly in which he criticized the centre.

Among the charges he made against the centre were that the state mined 40 per cent of the country's minerals but only got 14 per cent of the royalty earned.

He claimed that he had "strongly pleaded with the Centre that the policy should be changed".

He added that "the Centre is the buyer of our mineral products. It does not look nice that the consumer should also fix royalty rates. His second charge was that financial institutions were not being fair to the state. Jagannath had stated "I have told the chairman of the Industrial Development Bank of India to invest more in Bihar.

I have also told the financial institutions in plain words that for everything we would not go to the Centre". For the Congress(I) high command, the criticism was an uncommon show of independence. Almost immediately Jagannath was summoned to Delhi and resigned on 14 August 1983.

It was in his second and longest term as Chief Minister that he spoke against the Central Government's mining policy in 1983, including once for two hours in Bihar Assembly criticising the Indira Gandhi Government.

He was also Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha between 1988 - 1990 and 1994 - 2000.

His involvement was at a high level in the Indian National Congress.

He was elected Chief Minister of Bihar three times.

After his brother L.N. Mishra's assassination, Jagannath Mishra became Bihar's most powerful Congress leader in the late seventies and eighties.

Prior to the emergence of Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1990, Jagannath Mishra was rated as the biggest mass leader in the Congress.

He was affectionately called "Doctor Sahib".

His final role as Chief Minister of Bihar came in the wake of an anti-congress sentiment due to Bofors scandal and he was brought in to save the Congress in 1990 Bihar elections.

However, by the time elections were held, the Mandal commission report was implemented which created reservations for certain sections of society and new caste based alliances teamed up which were in favour of Janata Dal of VP Singh.

Lalu Prasad Yadav replaced Jagannath Mishra as Chief Minister.

He finally joined Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar after spending some time in the Nationalist Congress Party.

Mishra assumed power after fall of Abdul Ghafoor and he, according to Ashwini Kumar, patronised the Forward Castes in his government with 40% of the ministers in his cabinet hailing from Forward Castes.

According to Frankel he cultivated a social coalition of Brahmins, Dalits and Muslims and checked the political ascendancy of the Backwards.

In fact, it was Mishra's rule in which crime and politics became inseparable and several contemporary observers note that "politics became a game of personal gains and loss."

On 30 September 2013, a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Ranchi convicted him, along with 44 others, in the Fodder Scam.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 rupees.

On 25 October 2013, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to Mishra in fodder scam case.

Mishra maintained his name was deliberately included in the scam on the instruction of the Congress president Sitaram Kesri.

(SJ) 838 of 2013 and Cr.

App.

Dr. Mishra was acquitted in two fodder scam cases on 23 December 2017 and 19 March 2018.

In two cases his Appeal is pending in Jharkhand High Court.

[Cr.

App.

(SJ) 268 of 2018]

Mishra began his career as a lecturer and later became professor of economics at Bihar University, Muzaffarpur.