Raghunath Jha

Raghunath Jha (9 August 1939 – 15 January 2018) was an Indian politician who was Union minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise and member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. He represented the Bettiah constituency of Bihar and was a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) political party. Born in Village Amba Ojha Tola, in Sheohar (then Sitamarhi in British India) He started his career by becoming the Mukhiya of his home panchayat in the year 1967. Thereafter, in 1967 he became Chairman of Zila Parishad. He started his legislative career in 1972 when he was elected as a MLA on Congress Ticket. He was elected from Sheohar for a record six consecutive terms till 1998. He was twice elected as a Member of Parliament from Gopalganj and Bettiah respectively.

Jha was a optimistic politician. In 1994 due to his extreme efforts his hometown, Sheohar which was a block then was converted into a district which was next to impossible as it was a very small town.

A shrewd politician, and the Brahmin face of the RJD in the Lok Sabha, he entered active politics in 1960s as a Socialist before switching over to the Indian National Congress, the Janata Party, RJD, Janata Dal (United) and finally rejoining Lalu Prasad's party.

An ardent follower of former prime minister Chandra Shekhar, the 73-year-old Jha remained a member of Socialist Party till 1972 before switching over to the Congress and successfully contesting the assembly elections from Sheohar.

He represented the constituency in 1972, 1977 and 1980 on the Congress ticket and became a minister in the erstwhile Jagannath Mishra ministry in Bihar. As he paraded in favour of Mishra before the Raj Bhavan in 1985 in support of the latter's candidature for the post of chief minister and ouster of the then chief minister Bhagwat Jha Azad, Jha was denied re-nomination from Sheohar for "disobeying" the Congress leadership. Jha then resigned from the Congress' primary membership and secured a Janata Party ticket when Shekhar was its president. Rajiv Gandhi came to campaign against Jha in Sheohar but the latter won the elections to the Sheohar assembly seat for the fourth time in a row.

After merger of former prime minister V P Singh's Jan Morcha, Janata Party and Lok Dal of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal in Bangalore in 1988, Jha was made the state president of Janata Dal in Bihar. But his relations with Singh were not going well and he was removed from the post within three months. A few months after his removal, Jha was made chairman of the party's parliamentary board in Bihar following Shekhar's intervention.

In the late 1980s, some of the remnants of Janata Party had come together to form Janata Dal, which formed a coalition government at the national level following the 1989 Indian general election. In 1990 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, Janata Dal won the largest number of seats and sought to form government with the outside support of BJP and Communists. Jha was a contender for Chief Ministership pitted against Ram Sundar Das and Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yadav was supported by Devi Lal and Nitish Kumar, Jha by Chandra Shekhar and Das by Prime Minister VP Singh. Yadav had compaigned heavily in favour of implementing Mandal Commission, which sought to reserve government jobs for backward castes in Central Government jobs. Das was less keen on this. Nitish Kumar rallied backward caste MLAs towards Yadav. In the election, Yadav won narrowly over Das by a vote of 59 to 56. Jha won 12, mostly upper caste MLAs.[1]

On 3 September 2015, Jha left the RJD joined the Samajwadi Party, becoming the latter's first MLA in Bihar.[2] He also accused Prasad of ignoring senior leaders in a bid to promote his family members in the party. Jha's son, Ajit Kumar Jha, would also join the SP, giving the party 2 MLAs in Bihar.

He died on January 15, 2018 at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi.[3]