Pradeep Kumar Majhi

Pradeep Majhi
Pradeep Majhi
Member: 15th Lok Sabha
In office 2009 - incumbent
Preceded by	Parsuram Majhi
Constituency	Nabarangpur
President Orissa Youth Congress
In office 2009 - 2011
Secretary Indian Youth Congress
In office 2007-2009
President Zila Parishad Nabarangpur
In office 2007-2009
Personal details
Born	(1976-02-22) February 22, 1976
Political party	Indian National Congress
Residence	New Delhi
Religion	Hinduism
As of October 21, 2012

Pradeep Majhi (Oriya: ପ୍ରଦୀପମାଝି) (born 22 February 1976) is an Indian politician, a Member of Parliament from Nabarangpur. He is also a former state president of Orissa Pradesh Youth Congress and also former secretary Indian Youth Congress. He was also the President of Zilla Parishad.^[1][2] He created history as the first-timer young Lok Sabha Member of Parliament who asked 501 questions, more than anybody else in first two years stint by the statistics made by prominent The Week magazine.^[3]

Early life

He was born in a predominately tribal backward region village named Taliamba, Jharigam of District Nabarangpur area of Orissa to Bhagaban Majhi and Subarno Prasad Majhi. He did his 12th from the prestigious Buxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar College Bhubaneswar and B.A graduation from Vikram Deb Autonomous College - Jeypore, Koraput . He went for Delhi for Advanced Diploma in Computer Application.

Political career

Majhi was studying law in Delhi when he got involved in highlighting the Malnutrition deaths of children in Nabarangpur district in 2002. He had gone back to his district. Before joining in active politics Sri Majhi had established an organization named as Garib Sena whose soul aim was to expose the corruption in terms of all benefits which are meant for common deprived people at the village level. During that period he conducted massive agitation in Gram Panchayat levels and Block levels on mismanagement of welfare schemes which were meant for rural people like rice and Kerosene.

Garib Sena Organization

After returning from Delhi, in 2002 he was engaged with his local people to find out all the schemes provided by the government were properly been given to the destined beneficiaries and to bring awareness among villagers he started an Organization with the help of local educated young people called as Garib Sena - whose prime aim was to monitor whether all the government schemes were properly utilised and reach to the end user to whom these Schemes are meant for. Within no time around Five Hundred Young people from Jharigam blocked joined in this Organization.

The main activities that were carried out by Garib Sena were to check the PDS System (Public Distribution System) is working effectively in providing rice, kerosene to the common people and also check that valid cards to BPL (Below Poverty Line) peoples are provided or not. He himself with the help of local youths visited DRDO and Block and collected the list of information related to total number of people benefited in these schemes and also started visiting the local Panchayats and verified whether those people are there and getting these schemes. He found due to poor education system in those areas villagers are completely unaware about all these benefits and government representatives and Panchayat representatives are taking all these benefits which are meant for poor people. Around 30% BPL cards are kept by Panchayat Secretary, Sarapanch, Panchayat Extension Officers. He contacted those villagers whose names are there in BPL list however not aware of these schemes and started giving Complaints in local police stations against the Panchayat Secretary, Sarapanch, Panchayat Extension Officers. Initially Police was reluctant to accept the complaint, then Pradeep Majhi along with local villagers started Gherao and protest the ignorance of Police in taking action against the real Culprit. Finally he managed to create awareness among local villagers and forwarded these movements via Garib Sena towards other Blocks in |Nabarangpur] districts.

Dongiriguda Malnutrition deaths

The Dongiriguda Adivasi settlement, located in the reserve forest under Jharigaon block of Orissa's Nawrangpur district, may have remained unknown and out of the government's purview for many more years to come but for the death of 11 malnourished children in the 0-5 age group in the space of a few weeks in June–July in 2002.

Dongiriguda has remained outside the purview of numerous government schemes because it is a non-revenue village or one that exists within reserve forest limits. None of the families possesses a below poverty line (BPL) card because theirs is not a revenue village. Jolted by media reports, government officials, who had never visited Dongiriguda before, made a beeline to the hamlet, treading the jungle path, to save their political masters much embarrassment.

One major achievement of Garib Sena was to highlight this Malnutrition deaths of children in Dongiriguda of Nabarangpur district in 2002. In this movement Pradeep Majhi was himself instrumental in bringing this news in National media and it created a great image among public.In this movement had made the state CM many sleepless night.

Rise in Politics

AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi discovered him under the Youth Congress ‘Talent Search for Youth’ conducted in Bhubaneswar where he stood first in the state level. Pradeep Majhi started his political career as elected President Zilla Parishad from Nabarangpur.

Majhi is among the rising young leaders of National Congress party. He is very close to Rahul Gandhi, who is Party vice president and also in charge of the Youth Congress affairs.^[4] Majhi from Orissa registered history, when he was appointed as the secretary of Indian Youth Congress. This is the first time a person from Orissa has been elevated to this post. While the UPA 2 government is all set to complete two years, prominent “Week’ magazine came up with a detailed statistics that Congress MP from Nabarangpur, Mr Majhi has set a new record. The first-timer Lok Sabha MP asked 501 questions in two years with all-time records of 75 percentage of attendance in Parliament irrespective of his additional Orissa Youth Congress responsibilities.^[5]

President of Zilla Parishad Stint

After successfully carried out the Garib Sena organization in a district level, he was chosen by Congress party to contest the Zilla Parishad member candidate in year 2007. He was won by a huge margin and eventually elected as the President of Zilla Parishad of Nabarangpur in May'13 2007 at the age of 32.

Mr Majhi believes this Zilla Parishad a 3 Tier Panchayat System is a powerfil post. During his Two Year tenure (2007 - 2009) Mr Majhi given major emphasys in conducting regular meetings of PRI (Panchayat Raj Institution) members along with took major interest in implementing the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Raj Sangathan - RGPRS. He made lot of awareness not just a mere signing authority and took special interest in bringing all the Culprit who are allegedly involved in corruption in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act MGNREGA. In his tenure highest number cases and allegations were registered and sent to Vigilance team.

Other significant achievements were Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme BRGF were properly allocated to the proper beneficiary activities and highest Hector of Plantation of cashew (around 38K hectors) in records. He made it clear that Zilla Parishad institution should work in a transparent and effective manner.

Indian Youth Congress Secretary Stint

In 2008 he was appointed as Secretary of Indian Youth Congress by AICC Vice-President and MP Sri Rahul Gandhi and was made in-charge of Jharkhand state Young Congress. During that tenure of 1 year, he had toured maximum city and village areas of Jharkhand. Motivates the youth to be part of active politics which is a message of Rahul ji and emphasises the ground level lower carder workers to be part of main stream of politics. He claims till date he still have same level of emotional attachment with youth congress workers of Jharkhand.

Orissa Youth Congress President Stint

In Pradeep Majhi’s stints as president of Orissa Youth Congress, he has attempted with his hard work and commitment to bring back the faith among young congress members when Orissa congress was going through a hard period. A huge number of fresh young bloods had been injected in party via talent hunt programs conducted across the state. He has dared the Orissa ruling Naveen Patnaik government over the huge Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scam. He has also lunched a Hunger strike near the state secretariat with his supporters seeking loan waiver for small and marginal farmers hit by nonseasonal rain. Then the hunger strike was called off after 7 days. On the sixth day of the stir six leaders including Majhi were shifted to the Capital Hospital there after their condition deteriorated. The Capital Hospital’s Causality ward was crowded with many Congress leaders and workers to inquire about their health condition.

Orissa Youth Congress had advanced a lot under his leadership and guidance in terms of more discipline, more agitations and movements, infusion of ample fresh bloods in party carder and most significantly propagating Rahul ji's vision and message to youth across the state.^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]}

2009 Lok Sabha Elections

He was nominated by the Congress party to contest the Lok Sabha elections 2009 from Nabarangpur in Odisha. He won the 2009 Lok Sabha election by a margin of 30830 votes.^[27]

Personal life

Pradeep Majhi is still single and has completely dedicated his life for the social service. At a personal front he is simple, honest, hard working, high on energy, mature political brinkmanship, easily approachable and sociable in nature. His calm and quiet demeanour is widely appreciated and recognized. His hobbies are like Driving, reading national and international news magazines and watching Hollywood and Bollywood action movies.

He has a special interest in Poverty eradication programme, proper utilization of Water resources, Water management and awareness for health and against population explosion. Above all he is one of the tallest Adivasi Leaders of his country.

Foreign Exposure

He has been to many countries like U.S.A, Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, Germany, Sweden and Czech Republic.

References

External links

• Indian Youth Congress
• Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website