Former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, 82, passed away in Delhi on Tuesday after a prolonged illness. Mishra was one of the tallest political leaders of Bihar before Lalu Prasad became the face of the State politics.
Apart from holding the post of Chief Minister thrice as a Congress stalwart, Mishra served as a Union Cabinet Minister.
Mishra was convicted along with 44 others in the infamous fodder scam in 2013.
He was sentenced to four years imprisonment. However, he was acquitted by a Ranchi court last year.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has expressed grief on the death of Mishra. “Jagannath Mishra was a famous leader and educationist. He made an invaluable contribution to the politics of Bihar and India. His death is an irreparable loss to the field of politics, society, and education,” Nitish Kumar said in a statement. The Bihar Government has declared a three-day State mourning in the State.
In the 70s and 80s, Mishra was considered a powerful and mass leader of the Congress in Bihar. However, his popularity dipped after the emergence of the social justice forces under the likes of Lalu in 1990. At one point, Mishra left the Congress to join the Nationalist Congress Party.
He also became popular among Muslims after his Government made Urdu the second official language of Bihar in 1980.
Before joining politics, Mishra worked as a lecturer and later became a professor of economics at Bihar University. He wrote about 40 research papers and also authored a number of books.
His son, Nitish Mishra, is also a politician and served in the Nitish Kumar’s cabinet. Jagannath Mishra’s elder brother, Lalit Narayan Mishra, served as the Union Railway Minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet from 1973 to 1975. Lalit Narayan was assassinated in 1975 when he visited Bihar’s Samastipur to declare the Samastipur-Muzaffarpur broad gauge Railway line had been opened.