The Bihar Times: Jamshaid Ashraf – A Politician with a Difference
(BiharTimes): The axed Bihar minister for excise, Jamshaid Ashraf who created a storm by directly accusing the chief minister’s secretariat of being involved in corruption is relatively new to the game of politics.
Being made up of a different stuff his entry in politics too was somewhat accidental. In 2004 he met the Lok Janshakti Party leader, Ram Vilas Paswan in a plane. Paswan was impressed by him and invited him to join politics. A month later he went to meet the LJP leader. He offered him a ticket as assembly election in Bihar was due in February 2005.
Jamshaid, who was not much familiar with the ground realities of Bihar had difficulty in selecting the assembly constituency. However, his friends chose Balia in Begusarai as he hailed from that district.
Jamshaid lost by a slender margin to Shri Narayan Yadav of RJD who happened to be a minister too. The election campaign was a new experience for this industrialist-turn-politician and provided him a lot of opportunity to learn.
The defeat, however, did not deter him from doing social service and he fulfilled promises made during the campaign. He personally got installed five hand pumps in every panchayat of the constituency.
Jamshaid could not digest the slogan of Muslim chief minister for Bihar, then raised by Ram Vilas Paswan as it could never have been an election issue in India. In the meantime Janata Dal United leader, Nitish Kumar, got in touch with him and invited him to his party. He was offered ticket for October-November 2005 Assembly election from the same Balia seat. He won this time. He was not keen on becoming minister of excise deptt. and joined the office after 10 days. He told BiharTimes – “the bureaucrats thought that I would spend most of the time in Mumbai, where my family still lives. But after becoming minister I proved a hard nut to crack for them.”
He reiterated that he never lived in the ministerial bungalow or took money from the government for air trips. “I do not even introduce myself to people in my neighbourhood in Mumbai that I am a minister.”
Jamshaid had his schooling from St Michael High School, Patna. He then shifted to C M College, Darbhanga, for college education. He then did Aeronautical Engineering from Cochin.
After doing his graduation he worked at the Kolkata airport, then in Air India in the same city before he shifted to Mumbai.
The 1954-born Jamshaid left the job and plunged into business. He soon became a successful entrepreneur owning a no. of companies right from hospitality to container transport. Currently, he is the chairman of Pearl group of companies with more than 110 crore annual turn over.
His wife is a practising Aromatherapist, managing her own premium spa – Panacea , located at Hiranandani in Mumbai.
Father of two sons, one doing MBA in Oxford and the other doing graduation in Sydney, Jamshaid is the owner of two hotels in Kolkata and Pearl O2, a restaurant in Mumbai.
He has visited almost all the countries of Asia except Pakistan before becoming a minister. However, he got an opportunity to visit Pakistan too where he represented his State in a delegation.
He loves cars and has a fleet of nine vehicles, which include, Pajero and Prado.
When asked, will he continue in politics any more, he replied, “Why not. Politics is one of the most powerful medium to trigger change and express your own opinion”. “Bihar politics too need some professionals and well established politicians who could afford to be in politics not for making money” added Ashraf.
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