A profile of Jagat Prakash Nadda

Jagat Prakash Nadda is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, elected from Gujarat, and a Cabinet Minister in the Government of India. Since June 2024 he has held two portfolios — Health and Family Welfare and Chemicals and Fertilizers — and serves as Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha.

His public life spans more than four decades. It began in student politics in Patna during the mid-1970s, continued through organisational work in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, and led to three terms in the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, where he served as Leader of the BJP legislature group and as a Cabinet Minister. He entered the Rajya Sabha in 2012, served as Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare from 2014 to 2019, and was National President of the Bharatiya Janata Party from January 2020 to January 2026.

The record below is organised chronologically. Where sources differ on a date, the discrepancy is noted rather than resolved by assumption.

Jagat Prakash Nadda was born on 2 December 1960 in Patna, Bihar. His father, Dr. Narain Lal Nadda, was an academic; Government of India profiles record that he taught at Patna University and later served as Vice-Chancellor of Ranchi University. His mother was the late Smt. Krishna Nadda.

Although he was born and schooled in Bihar, the family’s roots lie in Himachal Pradesh. His permanent address recorded with the Rajya Sabha is in Vijaypur village in the Jhandutta tehsil of Bilaspur district — the same district he later represented in the state legislature.

He married Dr. Mallika Nadda on 11 December 1991. The official biodata records that they have two sons.

His schooling and undergraduate education took place in Patna; his legal education, in Shimla.

His official biodata links his entry into public life to the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan (the J.P. Movement) in Bihar in 1974–75. It records that the movement inspired him to join the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti, that as a child he took part in a relay fast during the movement, and that he played a role in the student movement of 1975.

In Patna he became active in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student organisation. After moving to Himachal Pradesh University, he was elected President of the university’s Student Central Association in 1983. He then worked as an ABVP organiser — in Himachal Pradesh from 1984 and in Delhi from 1985 — and became the organisation’s National Secretary in 1989. The biodata also records that in 1987 he was detained for 45 days after organising the Rashtriya Sangharsh Morcha, a campaign against corruption.

A fuller account is on the Early Life page.

In 1991 he became National President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Two years later he contested his first Assembly election.

He was elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Bilaspur in 1993, 1998 and 2007. During his first term he led the BJP group in the Assembly (1994–1998), a role that Government profiles describe as Leader of the Opposition. In his second term he was a Cabinet Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs (1998–2003). In his third term he again served as a Cabinet Minister, holding the Forest, Science and Technology portfolios among others; he resigned from the state cabinet in March 2010 after being appointed a National General Secretary of the BJP.

That appointment marked his move to national responsibilities, which the Political Journey page traces in detail.

He was first elected to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal Pradesh in April 2012 and re-elected from the state in 2018. In February 2024 he was declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat; he resigned his Himachal Pradesh seat with effect from 4 March 2024, and his Gujarat term began on 3 April 2024. It runs until 2 April 2030.

Parliamentary records list his service on the Rajya Sabha committees on Transport, Tourism and Culture (2012) and on Health and Family Welfare (2012–2014), the Committee of Privileges (2013–2014), the Business Advisory Committee (2014) and, briefly in 2014, as Chairman of the Committee on Human Resource Development. He has been a member of the General Purposes Committee since November 2025.

In June 2024 he was named Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha. The role and its responsibilities are explained on the Parliament page.

His organisational responsibilities in the Bharatiya Janata Party, as documented in official profiles and contemporaneous reporting, include:

• National General Secretary, from 2010 to 2014.
• Secretary of the Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee, from 2014.
• National Working President, appointed by the party’s Parliamentary Board on 17 June 2019.
• National President, elected unopposed on 20 January 2020. His tenure was extended by the party’s National Executive in January 2023.

On 20 January 2026 Nitin Nabin was declared elected unopposed as National President of the party, succeeding him.

The Rajya Sabha biodata also records his involvement in sport administration: President of the Himachal Pradesh Olympic Association (2008–2012), President of the Himachal Handball Association and of the Himachal Archery Association, and member trustee of Special Olympics Bharat. From 2012 to 2014 he was a member of the Court of the University of Delhi.