Samrat Choudhary

Samrat Choudhary alias Rakesh Kumar is an Indian politician and Member of Bihar Legislative Council from the Bharatiya Janata Party. He has been the party president of BJP Bihar State unit from March 2023. He has also remained Member of Legislative Assembly and a minister in Government of Bihar in Rashtriya Janata Dal government. Chaudhary has been a former Vice President of BJP for the state of Bihar and currently elected for the second term as MLC in 2020 after his first term ended in 2019. In 2014 Samrat planned a split in Rashtriya Janata Dal by defecting thirteen MLAs as splinter group of the party. He later joined BJP. In 2022, he was selected as the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Council. Life Choudhary belongs to Koeri caste and he has been the OBC face of the BJP for a long time. He was born on 16 November 1968 in Lakhanpur village of Munger. His mother's name is Parvati Devi and father's name is Shakuni Choudhary. His ancestral village is in Lakhanpur in Tarapur block of Munger district. Samrat belongs to a family of politicians. His father, Shakuni Choudhary has been an MLA and MP seven times and mother Parvati Devi has been an MLA from Tarapur (Vidhan Sabha constituency). After completing his basic education, he received higher education from Madurai Kamaraj University. Political career Chaudhary entered active politics in 1990 and on 19 May 1999 he was sworn in as the Minister of Agriculture in the Bihar government. He contested from Parbatta (Vidhan Sabha constituency) in 2000 and 2010 and was elected MLA. In 2010, he was made the Chief Whip of the opposition party in the Bihar Legislative Assembly. On 2 June 2014, he was sworn in and took charge as Minister of Urban Development and Housing Department in the Government of Bihar. In 2018, he was made the vice president of Bihar Pradesh in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Before joining BJP he has remained associated with Rashtriya Janata Dal as well as Janata Dal (United). In 2020 Bihar Assembly election he was made star campaigner of National Democratic Alliance, meanwhile he was embroiled in a controversy after giving a controversial statement on Lalu Prasad Yadav's caste equation. In 2021, Samrat was made Panchayati Raj minister in the expanded cabinet of Nitish Kumar from BJP quota. He has also served as Minister for Urban Development and Housing, Health in 2014 in Jitan Ram Manjhi Ministry and Minister of Metrology and Horticulture in 1999 in Rabri Devi Ministry.