Nadda's Bihar connection

A group of Union ministers from Bihar met young officers of the Indian Administrative Service from the Bihar cadre posted as assistant secretaries in various central ministers. The group included Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minister of State for Human Resource Development Upendra Kushwaha. This was part of a series of meetings planned by the Centre to brief young officers about state-specific development needs so that such inputs could be factored into decision-making. What surprised some was the presence of Health Minister J P Nadda (pictured) - who is originally from Himachal Pradesh and has spent most of his political life in the hilly state - at the meeting. Insiders said Nadda's presence might have had something to do with the fact that he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (the Bharatiya Janata Party's student union wing) while he was at Patna University. Nadda's father was the vice-chancellor of Patna University then and he had spent his school and college days in Patna.