Inder Singh Namdhari is the first, and only, Sikh to become a MLA in Bihar and Jharkhand. A Sikh refugee from Pakistan, whose family was displaced during the Partition of the country in 1947, he went on to win seven elections in the two states. As a first-time MLA in 1980, he was elected as leader of Bihar BJP's legislative Party, and in 1988, as the president of the party's Bihar unit. In 1995, he was a minister in the cabinet of then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000, he was chosen as the state's first speaker. His became a member of Parliament from Chatra in 2009, as an independent candidate.