Patna: CM Nitish Kumar and state assembly Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav, along with several ministers, legislators and other dignitaries, on Friday celebrated the 101st birth anniversary of socialist icon, Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur here at a function organized on the premises of the state legislature. The CM, along with his deputies Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, deputy speaker Narendra Narayan Yadav, ministers Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Leshi Singh, Mangal Pandey and Sheila Kumari, former minister Shyam Rajak and legislators, offered floral tributes to the life-size statue of Thakur. On the other hand, RJD president Lalu Prasad, who arrived at the party’s state headquarters with his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Misa Bharti, paid tributes to a portrait of Thakur there. Besides the RJD, JD(U), BJP and Jan Suraj Party also held their separate functions. A function was also organized at Jannayak Smriti Sangrahalaya here that CM Kumar and others attended. Thakur, who was awarded the Bharat Ratna last year, is also popularly called Jannayak. He is remembered for path breaking decisions like making English a non-compulsory subject in matriculation examination. Union minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) patron Jitan Ram Manjhi said CM Kumar is carrying forward Thakur’s work and legacy.
