Patna: Patna-born 59-year-old Jagat Prakash Nadda is all set to take over as president of the largest political party in the world, BJP. JP Nadda, the outgoing health minister, was expected to take over as the party president in 2014 also, but the choice fell on Amit Shah. Born on December 2, 1960 at Rani Ghat in Patna to Naraian Lal Nadda and Krishna Nadda, Jagat Prakash had his schooling, college and university education at Patna, where his father was head of department of applied economics and commerce at Patna University and became later vice-chancellor of Ranchi University.
Two months back, JP Nadda had visited Patna along with his wife Prof Mallika Nadda and son, Aashish and visited his birthplace, professors quarters on the banks of the Ganga, Patna College, where he studied and Darbhanga House, where his father was professor. He went through the chamber of his father and different parts of the professor’s quarters to “educate” his son about Patna.
From the chamber of his father, he facilitated audio-video talks to his father at Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh for the son and other teachers. While his wife Mallika, daughter of the-then MP and former education minister of Madhya Pradesh, Jayashree Banjeree is also an assistant professor, his brother, Jagat Bhushan Nadda is also from academics, having worked at Goa, Jammu, Himachal Universities and BIT (Mesra).
He is now director of consortium for educational communication, an inter-university centre for UGC). Jagat Prakash was first elected to the Himachal Pradesh assembly in 1993, when he became health minister. He represented Bilaspur Sadar in HP assembly for three terms. He was elected to Rajya Sabha first in 2012 and again in 2018.
He was associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidharthi Parishad, students wing of BJP during his student days at Patna University and was elected secretary of Patna University Students’ Union in 1977 when his junior in health ministry, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey was its president.
