Bihar Assembly election 2025 | Binodanand Jha: the Bihar CM who got ‘Kamrajed’

Even before Independence, the Bihar Congress was dominated by two major rival factions: that of deputy Chief Minister Anuragh Narayan Sinha, a Rajput from Gaya, and of CM Shri Krishna Sinha (also called Shri Babu), a Bhumihar from Munger. After their deaths, in 1957 and 1961, respectively, factionalism and intra-party rivalry increased.

While Deep Narayan Singh replaced Shri Babu as CM, this was always understood to be a stop-gap arrangement. As the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) pondered over who would take over for good, two rival groups emerged.

The first comprised leaders who were previously in A N Sinha’s camp: notably, Rajput Satendra Narain Sinha, the son of A N Sinha, Maithil Brahmin Binodanand Jha, and Kayastha stalwart K B Sahay. On the other side was the Bhumihar faction, led by Mahesh Prasad Sinha.

While all these leaders had chief ministerial aspirations, Sahay and Mahesh Sinha faced a significant hurdle: both were not sitting members of the Assembly, having lost their seats Giridih and Muzaffarpur in the 1957 polls.

The national leadership of the Congress, preoccupied with internal conflicts in Uttar Pradesh, largely left the Bihar Congress to sort out its own issues. Binodanand Jha, then the state’s Revenue Minister, was elected CLP leader with the support of S N Sinha and Sahay. He was then sworn in as CM, defeating Mahesh Sinha.

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Born in Deoghar (now in Jharkhand), Binodanand Jha was elected to the Bihar Assembly from the Rajmahal seat (now in Jharkhand) in 1957 and 1962. Like his predecessors, he was a veteran of the Independence movement who had quit his studies after Mahatma Gandhi’s call during the 1919 Indian National Congress session.

Jha was elected to the provincial assembly in 1937 and 1946, and served as a minister under Shri Babu, managing portfolios like Local Self-Government, Health, Labour, and Revenue. Like Shri Babu and Deep Narayan Singh, he too was a member of the Constituent Assembly.

Jha, a Maithil Brahmin, represented a new caste group (after Bhumihars and Rajputs) at the helm of Bihar. To consolidate support, he included S N Sinha in his cabinet and made him his chief spokesperson, despite Sinha not being a member of the Assembly or the Legislative Council.

This move, however, strained Jha’s relationship with Sahay, who resented S N Sinha’s growing influence. This would go on to be significant a few years down the line.

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After becoming CM, Jha’s primary challenge was to lead Congress to victory in the 1962 Assembly polls, set to take place less than a year after his election.

In January 1962, prior to the polls, Patna hosted the 67th session of the Indian National Congress under party president Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. Despite internal differences, Bihar’s Congress leaders, spurred by central leadership, including an ailing Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, put up a united front ahead of the elections.

This paid off, to an extent. Congress won 185 seats in the 318-seat Assembly in March 1962, a decline from the 239 and 210 seats it had won in 1952 and 1957, respectively, but nonetheless a majority in the third consecutive polls post-Independence. Jha’s leadership was credited for Congress’ majority, and he was sworn in as CM once again.

Opposition parties, however, gained ground: the Swatantra Party won 50 seats, the Praja Socialist Party (PSP) 29, the Jharkhand Party 20, the Communist Party of India (CPI) 12, the Socialist Party seven and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS) three.

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Binodanand Jha’s tenure lasted two years and 226 days. Unlike Shri Babu, this was not a time of transformative reforms but a period of social and political transformation in the state.

As the influence of pre-Independence era leaders began to wane, new social groups emerged in Bihar. The Congress, while dominant, was now beginning to face increasing internal and external challenges.

One of Jha’s most notable achievements was to orchestrate the merger of the Jaipal Singh Munda-led Jharkhand Party into the Congress in mid-1963. The Jharkhand Party had been the second largest party in the 1952 polls and enjoyed a significant presence in the state’s tribal-dominated regions.

But Jha would eventually fall victim to national developments in the party. By 1963, he was deeply unpopular with both the high command in Delhi and among sections of the party itself. This is when the infamous ‘fish scandal’ broke out: Jha accused Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, a close aide of Sahay, with whom Jha had by now developed a serious rivalry, of trying to kill him by serving poisoned fish. Jha made a big deal out of this scandal, causing much embarrassment for the Congress leadership in Delhi.

But it would not be easy to sideline Jha, who had, after all, had led the party to an election victory only a year prior. To the rescue came veteran K Kamaraj, the veteran Congress leader from Tamil Nadu. With Nehru’s health declining, and the Congress grappling with succession issues, Kamaraj came up with a plan. The so-called Kamaraj plan, introduced in September 1963, required all union ministers and chief ministers to resign from office and focus on party work. This allowed Nehru to fundamentally reshape the party, and its state units and governments.

Several prominent leaders across the country, especially those who were disliked by New Delhi, were sidelined. Jha became a casualty of the Kamaraj plan. He stepped down in late September, after which the CLP elected K B Sahay to replace him.

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After his resignation, Jha’s political influence waned. While he did get elected to Lok Sabha from Darbhanga on a Congress ticket in 1971, his status was much diminished. He passed away in September 1971.

His son, Krishnanand Jha, carried forward the family’s political legacy, winning the Madhupur seat (now in Jharkhand) in 1980, 1985, and 1990 on a Congress ticket, and serving as a minister in the Bihar government.

The period following the deaths of A N Sinha and Shri Babu marked a turning point for the Bihar Pradesh Congress, as it transitioned from being dominated by two factions to a more fragmented, multi-factional party. Binodanand Jha’s brief tenure as CM reflected the challenges of balancing caste dynamics, internal rivalries, and electoral pressures, underscoring Bihar’s innate political complexities.