Patna, Jan 24 (PTI) Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar arrived in Patna on Friday to attend the 101st birth anniversary celebrations of former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, who was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna by the Union government last year.
Dhankhar was welcomed by Governor Arif Mohammad Khan and Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary at the Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport here in the morning.
The vice president then left for Samastipur for the function.
Union Minister for Agriculture, Farmers’ Welfare and Rural Development, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who also arrived here to attend the event, was accorded a warm welcome by Choudhary.
Karpoori Thakur, considered the fountainhead of OBC politics in Bihar, was named for the country’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna posthumously, a Rashtrapati Bhawan communique had said on the eve of his birth centenary last year.
Thakur, who passed away in 1988, was the first non-Congress socialist leader who became chief minister twice — first for seven months in December 1970 and later for two years in 1977.
Known affectionately as ‘Jan Nayak’ (people’s leader), Thakur is the 49th recipient of the Bharat Ratna. PTI PKD RBT
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