When Meira made LS debut by defeating Mayawati & Paswan

A few months after he won a landslide during December 1984 parliamentary polls, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi one day suggested to Meira Kumar, daughter of former Deputy Prime Minister Jagjiwan Ram, to take a plunge into electoral politics.

An IFS officer of 1973 batch, Meira was then serving in the Ministry of External Affairs. A bypoll was scheduled to be held in Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh in 1985. Rajiv Gandhi suggested that she should contest the Lok Sabha by-election from the reserved parliamentary constituency in UP.

Meira was a bit reluctant as the Lok Sabha constituency was alien to her and was far from Sasaram, her father’s citadel in Bihar (Jagjiwan Ram won from Sasaram for eight consecutive times since first LS poll in 1952, without ever being defeated). Eventually, Meira gave in after PM’s persuasion. She quit IFS and joined the hurly-burly of electoral politics in 1985.

Contesting against her was a new-comer Mayawati, the protégé of BSP supremo Kanshi Ram. Making it a triangular contest was Ram Vilas Paswan, who had lost the December 1984 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar’s Hajipur, the same constituency from where he entered the Guinness Book of World Records by winning the 1977 LS poll with record margin. But in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, where there was a huge sympathy for the late PM, Paswan sank like a Titanic during December 1984 parliamentary polls.

When the result of Bijnore election came, Meira emerged triumphant defeating her rivals: Mayawati and Paswan, both towering Dalit leaders today.

Since then, there has been no looking back for this soft-spoken and suave leader. She has won from Sasaram twice (2004, 2009) and lost thrice (1989, 1991 & 2014). In between, she also won from New Delhi’s Karol Bagh seat twice (1996, 1998) and lost once (1999).

Having served as a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in 1991, she was made an AICC general secretary in 1992. When UPA-I came to power, she became Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment. In UPA-II, a new chapter was written in the history of Indian Parliament when Meira was elected as India’s first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Having unsuccessfully contested Presidential poll in 2017, Meira is again in the Lok Sabha fray from her bastion Sasaram.