BJP nominee from Jamui, Shreyasi Singh.
Credit: X/@Office_Shreyasi
Patna: It will be a rare occasion when Shreyasi Singh, the youngest minister in the Nitish Cabinet and Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of the Opposition-designate will come face to face in the Bihar Assembly. While she will be on the treasury benches, Tejashwi will lead the Opposition on this side of the fence.
Both were students of the prestigious DPS, RK Puram in New Delhi, two decades back.
While Tejashwi could not complete his Xth, Shreyasi, also an Arjun awardee in the field of shooting, completed her MBA before winning gold in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
On November 20, the 1991-born Shreyasi again ‘struck gold’ when she was inducted into the Nitish Cabinet as the youngest minister. The move is surprising as she is the daughter of former Union Minister late Digvijay Singh, with whom Nitish always remained at loggerheads.
While Nitish was George Fernandes’ protege, Digvijay was a Chandrashekhar protege who served as a Union Minister in the Chandrashekhar Cabinet as well as the Vajpayee ministry. Such was the animosity between Nitish and Digvijay that Vajpayee had to shift the latter as Union Minister of State, Railways to Union Minister of State, External Affairs when Nitish headed the Railways portfolio. The ties between Nitish and Digvijay remained soured till the latter passed away.
Who is Shreyasi Singh?
Amid such background, Shreyasi, at the age of 29, joined the BJP and made her debut as saffron party MLA from Jamui in the 2020 Assembly elections. During the 2025 polls, she again won from Jamui Assembly seat, part of her bastion from where her father won the Lok Sabha election from Banka as Janata Dal (United) candidate. Her mother Putul Kumari, miffed with Nitish, contested as an Independent (following Digvijay’s death) and won the Lok Sabha election from Banka, before joining the BJP, and not the JD (U).
Shreyasi, like her mother, never joined the JD (U), keeping in mind how her highly-competent father (a JNU leader too during his student days) was humiliated at the hands of Nitish since the Samata Party days.
Shreyasi joined the BJP and has allowed lotus to bloom in the naxal-infested Jamui, till Nitish deemed it fit to “let bygones be bygones” and awarded his friend-turned-foe’s daughter with a Cabinet berth.