Former Chief Minister of Bihar Karpoori Thakur was awarded the nation’s highest honour, Bharat Ratna, posthumously by the President of India Droupadi Murmu this evening. The award comes 35 years after his death — Karpoori Thakur died on February 17, 1988.
Dubbed Jan Nayak by many in the state, Karpoori Thakur served as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a short while — from December 1970 to June 1971 and from December 1977 to April 1979.
The Centre’s recognition for the state’s first non-Congress Chief Minister meets a long-standing demand of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal United.
Coming ahead of the general election, it is seen a move to please the Chief Minister of a state that has 40 parliamentary seats and has an on-again-off-again relationship with the BJP.
Today, the Chief Minister said this “highest honor to late Karpoori Thakur ji on his 100th birth anniversary will create positive sentiments among the Dalits, deprived and neglected sections”.
An ally for decades, Mr Kumar had broken away from the NDA ahead of the 2014 general elections but returned to the fold in 2017. Less than two years ago, he walked out again, forming government with a new alliance that has all parties of Bihar — small and big — on board.
That move had left then BJP out in the cold, with a fractured Lok Janshakti party for company. The BJP’s isolation factor has cemented the spin on today’s events.
Karpoori Thakur, who was a member of Other Backward Castes. Many see it as part of the BJP’s attempt to gain allegiance of this section which has so far been loyal to Nitish Kumar.
