Early life: Patna, Shimla and the student years

Jagat Prakash Nadda was born in Patna, the capital of Bihar, on 2 December 1960. His parents were Dr. Narain Lal Nadda and Smt. Krishna Nadda.

His father was an academic. Government of India profiles record that Dr. Narain Lal Nadda taught at Patna University and later served as Vice-Chancellor of Ranchi University. The family’s roots are in Himachal Pradesh: the Rajya Sabha record gives the family’s permanent address as Vijaypur village in the Jhandutta tehsil of Bilaspur district. Bilaspur later became the constituency he represented in the state legislature.

His schooling was in Patna, at St. Xavier’s School. He went on to Patna College, a constituent college of Patna University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.

Growing up in a university household in Patna placed him close to the city’s academic and student life. That setting matters for what came next: in the mid-1970s the universities and colleges of Patna were at the centre of the student movement in Bihar.

The Rajya Sabha biodata ties his entry into public life to the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan. It records three things:

• the movement inspired him to join the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti, the student coordinating body of the agitation;
• as a child he took part in a relay fast held during the movement against the then Chief Minister of Bihar, Abdul Gafoor;
• he played a role in the student movement of 1975.

The biodata does not describe his activities in more detail, and this page does not add to it.

In Patna he became active in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a national student organisation. ABVP work became the thread linking his student years in Bihar with his later life in Himachal Pradesh.

He studied law at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla and graduated with an LL.B. In 1983 he was elected President of the university’s Student Central Association.

The move to Shimla also brought him back to the state his family came from. From here on, his organisational and electoral life centred on Himachal Pradesh.

After university he became a full-time ABVP organiser. He worked first as an organising secretary in Himachal Pradesh in 1984, then in Delhi from 1985. In 1989 he became the organisation’s National Secretary.

The Rajya Sabha biodata also records that in 1987 he organised the Rashtriya Sangharsh Morcha, a campaign against corruption, and was detained for 45 days.

In 1991 he became National President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1993 he was elected to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Bilaspur.

That election closes the formative period covered here. The Political Journey page continues the record from 1993.