Janardan Manjhi

Manjhi was a resident of Baunsi in Banka district of Bihar. His political career started in 2001, when he won the elections to the Zila Parishad. Prior to this election, he was serving as the president of the district unit of Janata Dal (United) for the Banka. He was considered close to the former Union Minister Digvijay Singh and was working for the state's transport corporation in Bihar. Manjhi secured victory in the legislative assembly elections of 2005 from the Belhar Assembly constituency, defeating Ramdev Yadav of Rashtriya Janata Dal. This was considered as one of his greatest political achievement by the political analysts, as the particular seat was considered to be a stronghold of RJD for long. Earlier, Manjhi had contested from the same constituency against Yadav but was defeated as Belhar was considered to be a Yadav caste dominated constituency. In the elections to Bihar Legislative Assembly in 2010 too, Manjhi was successful in winning the Amarpur constituency.^[7]

The change in constituency took place after veteran leader of RJD, Giridhari Yadav joined JD(U) and the officials of the party decided to allow him contest from the Belhar constituency. In 2015, Manjhi again contested from the Amarpur constituency and he defeated Mrinal Shekhar of Bharatiya Janata Party this time. In 2020, due to ill health and ageing issues, he decided not to contest the elections and his son Jayant Raj was the candidate of JD(U) from Amarpur. In a trilateral contest, Jayant was able to retain the seat.^[7]