Bhagwat Jha Azad (1922–2011) was a freedom fighter of the Quit India generation who rose to become a long-serving Union minister and, briefly, Chief Minister of Bihar (1988–89). A forceful orator from the Maithil-Anga borderlands, he spent decades in national and state politics.
He was the father of the cricketer and politician Kirti Azad, a member of India’s 1983 World Cup-winning team — one of several political families that have shaped Mithila’s modern public life.