{"id":499689,"date":"2024-01-23T22:01:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T16:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=499689"},"modified":"2024-01-23T22:01:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T16:31:56","slug":"karpoori-thakur-bharat-ratna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/india-news\/karpoori-thakur-bharat-ratna\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur awarded Bharat Ratna posthumously"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur was awarded with Bharat Ratna, posthumously by the President of India Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday evening. The nation\u2019s highest honour to the former Bihar Chief Minister comes 35 years after his death. Karpoori Thakur died on February 17, 1988.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He served as the Chief Minister from December 1970 to June 1971 and from December 1977 to April 1979. Revered by his followers as Jannayak, Karpoori Thakur was known for his efforts to strengthen the backward castes. He paved the way for reservations for backward castes in government services in Bihar in 1978.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the Ram Mandir Pran Prathishtan finally over, this decision to confer the Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur points to a long game in Bihar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Both the Janata Dal United and the Rashtriya Janata Dal follow or claim to follow in the footsteps of Thakur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has made the request for conferring the Bharat Ratna on Thakur several times. Nitish Kumar is also seen as the glue holding together the INDIA Bloc despite the Congress larger footprint elsewhere.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision comes after the JDU had seen inner-party trouble in the preceding few months ending with former party president Lalan Singh submitting his resignation. The friction or the perceived friction between Nitish and RJD chief Lalu Yadav has also been cited as adding to the discomfort between the allies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given Nitish Kumar&#8217;s proclivity to switch sides, the Bharat Ratna seems to have become a handy tool to attempt to wreak havoc in Opposition ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prime Minister Narendra Modi also paid tributes to the former Bihar Chief Minister. Taking to X, he wrote that he is delighted that the Government of India has decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on the beacon of social justice, the great Jannayak, Karpoori Thakur and that too at a time marking his birth centenary. He added that the prestigious recognition is a testament to his enduring efforts as a champion for the marginalized and a stalwart of equality and empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am delighted that the Government of India has decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on the beacon of social justice, the great Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji and that too at a time when we are marking his birth centenary. This prestigious recognition is a testament to his enduring\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9fSJrZJPSP\">pic.twitter.com\/9fSJrZJPSP<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/narendramodi\/status\/1749806381497270300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 23, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the Ram Mandir Pran Prathishtan finally over, this decision to confer the Bharat Ratna on Karpoori Thakur points to a long game in Bihar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":499691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497,125714],"tags":[28810,161735,97603,161734],"yst_prominent_words":[],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2024\/01\/23215932\/107090403-3.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499689"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=499689"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=499689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- html is corrupted -->