Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary might well have been flattered by banners declaring “Jay Samrat, tay Samrat (Victory to Samrat, It will be Samrat)” on his home turf of Tarapur constituency in Munger district, when he filed his nomination papers on Thursday. However, questions over his age and educational qualifications, first raised by Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, continue to dog the senior BJP leader.
The latest election affidavit by Choudhary, who has been an MLC since 2020, hardly settles the allegations. His highest qualification is an “honorary” Doctor of Letters (DLitt), while he mentions a ‘PFC’ from Kamaraj University. He doesn’t mention the age when he acquired those qualifications for either.
Choudhary has also declared two election-related pending cases – one lodged in Patna in 2023, and another in Tarapur in 2014. While the 2023 case is over the violation of Section 144 (which prohibits gatherings of four or more people) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the 2014 one is for violating the Model Code of Conduct.
But there is no mention of a 1995 Tarapur case against him, over which Kishor has raised questions, alleging that Choudhary had “faked” his age so that he could be declared a minor then in order to get bail. Kishor claims Choudhary was actually 26 years old in 1995. In his current election affidavit, Choudhary has declared his age as 56, with the rider of “as per the voter list”. That would put him at 26 in 1995.
The new affidavit maintains what Choudhary declared during the 2020 Legislative Council polls. He had then declared that his DLitt degree was from ‘California Public University’, an American institute that primarily offers distance learning programmes as per its website, and also listed the ‘PFC’ from Kamraj University. In 2020 as well, he didn’t mention when he got a DLitt degree or did his ‘PFC’.
In fact, in 1999, when Choudhary was part of the Rabri Devi-led RJD government, as a leader of the party, he had to resign due to controversy about his age.
Soon after Choudhary filed his affidavit, Kishor pointed out that the BJP leader “has not responded to allegations made by me on age, and if he was one of the accused in the 1995 Tarapur case, in which six people were killed”. “He also remains silent on whether he had got bail by producing a certificate of being a minor, which he wasn’t at the time.”
Asked about Kishor’s allegations, Choudhary told The Indian Express: “I never studied to acquire a DLitt degree. It is honorary. I have also declared that I have done a pre-foundation course (PFC), which is taken as equivalent to Class 10 in certain instances. As for the Tarapur case, there is no case against me. Why should I react to something that is already a matter of court record? I am not going to get provoked and would rather focus on my election campaign, which is around the development agenda.”
Kishor’s claims have now been taken up by the RJD, the party to which Choudhary earlier belonged, too. Its national spokesperson Subodh Kumar said, “All of us expect a reply from Samrat Choudhary on his age, the Tarapur case and education controversies. It is very fashionable among the NDA to tarnish the image of RJD leaders. But when it comes to their own, they go into silent mode.”
BJP ally JD(U) also said Choudhary would do well to clear any confusion over his age and educational details. Its chief spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said: “Let Samrat Choudhary tell us when he did the PFC course… We also have doubts over his honorary degree.”
Within the BJP too, many are saying that Choudhary’s failure to counter the allegations is giving the Opposition an unnecessary issue. A senior BJP leader told The Indian Express, “Samrat must clarify his education details once and for all, even if he has studied till Class 7 or whichever class. After all, Rabri Devi, who became Bihar CM, had studied till only primary classes. Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has duly declared that he has studied only till Class 9. Samrat should also share the court status of the Tarapur case. If the court has given him a clean chit, it should be brought on record.”
A prominent Kushwaha leader from Lakhanpur village in Tarapur, Chaudhary has been in politics since the days of the Samata Party, which was founded in 1994 by George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar. With an age controversy forcing him to resign as minister in 1999, he had contested his first election in 2000, winning as an MLA from Parbatta in Khagaria district. He won the seat again in 2010, both times on the RJD ticket.
In 2018, he switched to the BJP, and returned to the Assembly. For the BJP, Choudhary is a valuable Kushwaha face, who can cultivate an Other Backward Class (OBC) Luv-Kush (or Kurmi-Koeri) constituency that forms around 7% of the state population. Incidentally, Nitish Kumar relies on the same vote bank.
In 2022, when the JD(U) quit the NDA to form a short-lived Mahagathbandhan government with the RJD, the BJP had named Choudhary as its Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council. In 2023, the BJP appointed him as the state party chief, and in 2024, when Nitish Kumar returned to the NDA fold and now became the CM from this side, Choudhary was named one of two Deputy CMs.
Apart from his Kushwaha credentials, Choudhary also enjoys a political legacy. His father Shakuni Choudhary was an MP, Deputy Speaker, and was viewed as among the state’s most prominent Kushwaha leaders along with Upendra Kushwaha (a former JD-U leader who is now the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Manch and an NDA ally). Shakuni represented the Tarapur Assembly seat from 1985 to 2005 as an Independent, and with the Congress and RJD. Shakuni’s wife Parvati Devi won from Tarapur, in a 1998 bypoll, for the Samata Party.
Incidentally, Choudhary has been put into the electoral fray by the BJP despite Kishor’s allegations, and despite the fact that he remains an MLC. Similarly, the party has also nominated MLC and Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey as a candidate.
A BJP leader admitted times were tough for Choudhary. “With Union minister and Ujiarpur MP Nityanand Rai playing a key role in seat-sharing negotiations with NDA allies… the political stock of Samrat seems to have declined in the last two months. The BJP is still not clear about its Bihar face. And, as of now, Samrat is feeling the heat after his mercurial rise in the Bihar BJP over the last three-four years,” the leader said.