Former Bihar CM and freedom fighter Karpoori Thakur got a rare honour posthumously. On his centenary, the central government of India honored him with the highest civilian award of India ‘Bharat Ratna’.
On the other hand the former union minister and veteran politician Lal Krishna Advani has also been awarded with Bharat Ratna.
About Karpoori Thakur
Karpoori Thakur was born on 24 January 1924 in Samastipur district of Bihar, India. He Passed away on 17 February 1988. Karpoori Thakur is popularly known as Jana neta ‘Jananayak’. He served as the CM of Bihar twice from December 1970 to June 1971 and from December 1977 to April 1979.
Karpoori Thakur was born on 24 January 1924 to Gokul Thakur and Ramdulari Devi at Pitaunjhia (now Karpurigram) a village in Samastipur District of Bihar(in British India).
He was influenced by nationalistic ideas as a student and joined the All India Students Federation. As a student activist, he left his graduate college to join the Quit India Movement during 1942. For his participation in the Indian independence movement, he had spent 26 months in prison.
After India gained independence, Thakur worked as a teacher in his village’s school. He became a member of the Bihar Vidhan Sabha in 1952 from Tajpur constituency as a Socialist Party candidate. In 1970, he undertook a fast unto death for 28 days to promote the cause of Telco labourers.
Thakur was a votary of Hindi language, and as the education minister of Bihar, he removed English as the compulsory subject for the matriculation curriculum. It is alleged that the Bihari students suffered due to the resulting low standards of English-medium education in the state. Thakur served as a minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, before becoming the first non-Congress socialist Chief Minister of Bihar in 1970. He also enforced total prohibition of alcohol in Bihar. During his reign, many schools and colleges were established in his name in the backward areas of Bihar.
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About LK Advani
L.K. Advani was born to Kishanchand D. Advani and Gyani Devi in Karachi, Sindh, then a part of undivided India. He completed his education from Saint Patrick’s High School, and Dayaram Gidumal National College in Pakistan and then went on to graduate from Government Law College in Bombay. He completed his Master’s in Sociology from Mumbai University.
Political Journey
- Advani joined RSS at a very young age and soon became a full-time worker there. He had Rajasthan from Karachi after the partition.
- In 1955, Advani got him linked with Bhartiya Jana Sangh, an Indian nationalist political party which was founded by Shri Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and in 1951 and lasted till 1977.
- Advani was a Rajya Sabha member from Delhi for a period of 6 years (1970-76).
- It was in 1973 when Advani after serving various positions in the party was made it’s President.
- He then became a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat in 1976 and completed his tenure of six years in 1982.
- Jan Sangh and some other political parties merged into Janata Party after the Emergency. Advani contested Lok Sabha elections in 1977 from Janata Party.
- Some former members of Jana Sangh left Janata Party and raised a new political party; BJP, for which Advani played a vital role and represented the party in Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh which began in 1982 and held the position for two consecutive terms.
- He was then made the President of BJP in 1986 and continued onto the position till 1991.
- In 1989, he became the Lok Sabha member, the time when Indian National Congress had to hold the hands of BJP which held 86 seats to form the government.
- Advani again became the Lok Sabha member in 1991 where the general elections gave BJP a boost and got them the second highest number of seats following Congress.
- He was again elected as the BJP President in 1993 and he held the post till 1998.
- L K Advani was sworn in as Union Home Minister in 1998 but could not continue to be one as the government dissolved in just 13 months.
- In 1999 he again became the Home Minister of India and this time government did last for 5 years. This was the first time that a non-congress government completed the whole term.
- From 2002 to 2004, he served as the Deputy Prime Minister of India.
- He was re-elected to the Lak Sabha in 2004 but this time as an opposition one.
- In 2009, he became a Lok Sabha member for the sixth time.
- Advani became the member of Joint Parliamentary Committee on Maintenance of Heritage Character and Development of Parliament House Complex in December 2009.
- To almost everyone’s surprise, he resigned from each and every post he held in 2013.
- He was again elected as a Lok Sabha member in 2014.
- He did not contest in the 2019 Election
List of Bharat Ratna Award Winners till the date is provided here
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