Sushil Kumar Modi (born 5 January 1952) is an

Indian politician Politics of India works within the framework of the country's Constitution. India is a parliamentary democratic secular republic in which the president of India is the head of state & first citizen of India and the prime minister of India is ...

from the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

who is a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

in the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

from

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

. He is a former

Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar The Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar is the seniormost cabinet member of the state government who serves as the de-facto second head of the state. He is the second highest ranking executive authority of the state's council of ministers. The curr ...

as well as the Finance Minister of Bihar from 2005 to 2013 and 2017 to 2020. He is a lifelong member of the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family" ...

. He was appointed the Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers for the Implementation of Goods and Service Tax in July 2011.

Early life and education

Sushil Modi was born on 5 January 1952 to Moti Lal Modi and Ratna Devi. He attended

Patna Science College Patna Science College, established in 1927, is one of the oldest science colleges in Patna, Bihar. It is affiliated to Patna University, and offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in science. History Patna Science College is an institut ...

and graduated with

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(Hons) Botany degree in 1973. He enrolled in

M.Sc. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

Botany Course at

Patna University Patna University is a public state university in Patna, Bihar, India. It was established on 1 October 1917 during the British Raj. It is the first university in Bihar and the seventh oldest university in the Indian subcontinent in the modern er ...

but left the course midway to join the social movement started by

Jai Prakash Narayan Jayaprakash Narayan (; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), popularly referred to as JP or ''Lok Nayak'' (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader. He is remembered for le ...

. Modi married Jessie George on 13 August 1986, a Christian Keralite hailing from

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. Modi and Jessy were classmates during their research studies. During this time, they fell in love and decided to get married. His wife is a professor in a college. The couple has two sons, Utkarsh Tathagat and Akshay Amritansh

He belongs to

Modh Modh is an Indian caste. Its members are people who use the name and originate from Modhera in Gujarat. Culture In that state and in Rajasthan, Lords Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh created Brahmins who were masters in Vedas, so that they can t ...

community, a caste categorised as OBC in the Indian system of positive discrimination.

Early political career

Sushil Modi's political career started as a student activist at

. He became the General-Secretary of Patna University Students' Union in 1973,

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad Yadav (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician and president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). He is a former List of Chief Ministers of Bihar, Chief Minister of Bihar (1990-1997), a former Ministry of Railways (India), Railway ...

who later came to be his biggest political rival was the President of the Union at the time. In 1974, he became a Member of Bihar Pradesh Chaatra (Student) Sangharsh Samiti which spearheaded the famous Bihar Student's Movement of 1974. Modi was arrested five times during JP Movement and the Emergency. He was arrested during the 1974 student movement in Bihar. He challenged the constitutional validity of MISA Act in the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

which resulted in section 9 of the MISA Act being struck down as unconstitutional. He was booked under the MISA and various other acts from 1973 to 1977. During The Emergency, he was arrested on 30 June 1975 and remained in Jail for 19 months continuously. He was appointed the State Secretary of the

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) () is a right-wing all India student organisation affiliated to the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). History The ABVP, founded in 1948 with the initiative of the RSS ...

after the Emergency. From 1977 to 1986, he held various leadership positions in the ABVP. During his tenure at ABVP he led a movement against the declaration of Urdu as the second language of

and

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

. Concerned about the issue of foreign infiltration from

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

in the bordering districts of

he raised the issue and after

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

, a movement against foreign infiltrators was launched in Bihar under his leadership.

Political career

In 1990, he joined active politics and successfully contested from Patna Central Assembly (now known as Kumhrar (Vidhan Sabha constituency)). He was re-elected in 1995 & 2000. In 1990, he was made the Chief Whip of the BJP Bihar Legislature Party. From 1996 until 2004 he was the Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly. He filed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the

Patna High Court The Patna High Court is the High Court of the state of Bihar. It was established on 9 February 1916 and later affiliated under the Government of India Act 1915. The court is based in Patna, the administrative capital of the state of Bihar, In ...

against

, which was later known as

Fodder Scam The Fodder Scam was a corruption scandal that involved the embezzlement of about from the government treasury of the north Indian state of Bihar.

. He became a member of Lok Sabha in 2004 representing the constituency of

Bhagalpur Bhagalpur is a city in the Indian state of Bihar, situated on the southern banks of the river Ganges. It is the 2nd largest city of Bihar by population and also the headquarters of Bhagalpur district and Bhagalpur division. Known as the Silk ...

. Modi was the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs in a short-lived

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 ...

government in 2000. He supported the formation of the State of

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

. In 2005 Bihar election,

NDA NDA may stand for: Military * National Defence Academy (India), a military academy in India * National Defence Act, legislation for organizing and funding Canada's military * National Defense Academy of Japan, a military academy in Japan * Nig ...

came to power and Modi was elected the leader of Bihar BJP Legislature Party. He subsequently resigned from the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

and took over as the

. He was given the Finance Portfolio along with a number of other departments. After NDA victory in 2010 Bihar elections, he continued to be the

. Modi did not contest the 2005 and 2010 Bihar Assembly elections to be able to campaign for BJP. Modi at Hunkar Rally in Patna

In 2017, Sushil Modi was the main player behind the fall of the JDU-RJD Grand Alliance government in Bihar, with his continuous tirade against RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family for four months over his alleged benami properties and irregular financial transactions. Sushil Kumar Modi was

’s deputy CM for around 11 years and the duo is often referred to as ''

Ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

Laxman Lakshman or Laxman is a common Indian name, most commonly used as a masculine given name. It derives from Lakshmana, the character of the Ramayana epic. Given name * Lakshmana (Chahamana dynasty), 10th century Indian king * Lakshman Kadirgamar, S ...

ki jodi'' in the political circles of Bihar. On 8 December 2020, he was elected unopposed to the

from

to fill the vacant seat after the demise of

Ram Vilas Paswan Ram Vilas Paswan (5 July 19468 October 2020) was an Indian politician from Bihar and the Cabinet Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the first and second Modi ministries. Paswan was also the president of the Lok Jansha ...

. He became the only leader from Bihar to have been a member of the

Bihar Legislative Council Bihar Vidhan Parishad, also known as Bihar Legislative Council, is the upper house of the bicameral Bihar Legislature of the state of Bihar in India. History A new Province of Bihar and Odisha was created by the Government of India on 12 Decem ...

and

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 ...

Positions held

References

External links