Manju Verma is an Indian politician and former Member of

Bihar Legislative Assembly The Bihar Legislative Assembly, also known as the Bihar Vidhan Sabha, is the lower house of the Bihar Legislature where the first elections were held in 1952. The total strength of membership in the Assembly was 331, including one nominated m ...

. She was the Minister of Social Welfare in the Bihar Cabinet.

Early life

Verma belongs to Kushwaha or the

Koeri The Koeri (spelt as Koiry or Koiri) and also referred to as Kushwaha and Maurya in several parts of North India are an Indian non-elite caste, found largely in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, whose traditional occupation was agriculture. According ...

caste. As per her affidavit submitted to

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, di ...

, she has pursued education up to intermediate level and her husband has been an agriculturist. She is the daughter-in-law of veteran

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

leader Sukhdeo Mahto.

Political career

Manju Verma has been an MLA from Cheria-Bariarpur constituency twice which falls under

Begusarai Begusarai is the industrial and financial capital of Bihar and the administrative headquarters of the Begusarai district, which is one of the thirty-eight districts of the Indian state of Bihar. The district lies on the northern bank of th ...

Lok Sabha constituency. The seat she represents was earlier also represented by her father-in-law who was a member of

, while her husband is also a leader of

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People’s Party (United)”) abbreviated as JD(U) is an Indian political party with political presence mainly in eastern and north-eastern India. JD(U) is recognised as a state party in the states of Bihar , Arunachal Pra ...

to which she belonged earlier. Verma has been an MLA in 2010 as well as 2015.In 2015, she was the only female member of

Nitish Kumar Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician, who is serving as Chief Minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previous held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. The leader of the Janata Dal (Unite ...

's cabinet where she was given the portfolio of social justice ministry. Verma was expelled from JD(U) after the notorious

Muzaffarpur shelter case Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Rape case refers to a shelter home that ran under a non-governmental organization called "''Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti''" at Muzaffarpur, Bihar, where cases of sexual abuse, rape and torture were reported. In a medic ...

in which she was allegedly involved. The maintenance of shelter home in which minor girls were kept was under the charge of her ministry. Later, she and her husband were also booked under "arms act", when CBI raid took place upon their ancestral house in connection with the "shelter case" which involved sexual abuse against destitute minor girls. The police however failed to arrest her after the case was lodged and the owner of shelter home, Brajesh Thakur was arrested. After three months, she surrendered into the court and accused JD(U) and Nitish Kumar of targeting her. In March 2019, Patna High Court granted bail to her in both the cases while her husband remained lodged in the jail. After Verma's resignation as the social welfare minister in connection with the case, Krishnandan Verma, the education minister in Nitish's 6th cabinet was allocated additional charge of social welfare ministry. During her trial Manju Verma had claimed that, she has been harassed because of her

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

, thus allocation of her ministry to Krishnandan Verma was taken as a moderation attempt by the JD(U) leadership. In 2018, in an interview with ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'', Verma claimed her husband to be innocent. According to her, she visited the shelter home only once with her husband on the occasion of a programme when she saw the girls cooking in their dirty clothes, but they refused to tell anything on enquiry. In the 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections, the Janata Dal (United) party from which Verma had resigned earlier following the cases of alleged involvement of her husband in Muzaffarpur Shelter home case again made her the party candidate to Bihar Assembly from the Cheria-Bariarpur constituency. Verma was defeated in this election by

Raj Banshi Mahto Raj Banshi Mahto is an Indian politician. He is currently member of Bihar Assembly from Cheriya Bariyapur Vidhan Sabha. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India from the Balia in Bihar as a member of the Ras ...

Rashtriya Janata Dal The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: ''National People's Party'') is an Indian political party, based in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Kerala. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The party's support base has tradit ...

, a former Member of Parliament.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verma, Manju Janata Dal (United) politicians People from Begusarai district State cabinet ministers of Bihar Bihar MLAs 2010–2015 Bihar MLAs 2015–2020 Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Women members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly Women state cabinet ministers of India 21st-century Indian women politicians

Early life

Political career

See also

References