| Chandrashekhar Yadav | |
| Caption: | Education minister of Bihar |
| Birth Place: | Madhepura, Bihar |
| Residence: | Patna, Bihar |
| Office: | Member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly |
| Constituency: | Madhepura |
| Term Start: | 2010 |
| Predecessor: | Manindra Kumar Mandal |
| Party: | Rashtriya Janata Dal |
| Profession: | Professor |
| Office1: | Minister of Education Government of Bihar |
| Office2: | Minister of Sugarcane Industries Government of Bihar |
| Predecessor2: | Alok Kumar Mehta |
| Termstart2: | January 2024 |
| Termend2: | January 2024 |
| Termstart1: | August 2022 |
| Termend1: | January 2024 |
| Succeeded1: | Alok Kumar Mehta |
| Predecessor1: | Vijay Kumar Chaudhary |
Chandrashekhar Yadav (born 1962) is an Indian politician from Bihar.[1] He is an MLA from Madhepura Assembly constituency and also served as a Minister of Education in the Government of Bihar. He won the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly election representing the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Yadav is from Madhepura, Bihar. He is the son of Anirudh Prasad Yadav. He is a lecturer. He completed his B.Com. in 1981 at College of Commerce, Magadh University, Bodhgaya and later did his post graduation in 1985 at Kanpur University, Kanpur.[2]
Yadav first became an MLA winning the 2010 Bihar Legislative Assembly election. Earlier, he lost the 2005 election as an independent and subsequently joined RJD in 2010. He is recognized for his advocacy on behalf of farmers' rights, he played a role in establishing Food Corporation of India centers in the Kosi and Madhepura regions in 1990s.
He won the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly election representing the Rashtriya Janata Dal from Madhepura Assembly constituency. He polled 79,839 votes and defeated his nearest rival, Nikhil Mandal of JDU by a margin of 15,072 votes. He served as education minister in the Nitish Kumar government from August 2022. Earlier, he served as Minister of Disaster Management, Bihar from 2015 to 2017. In January 2024, he became the Sugarcane Industries Department Minister.[3]
On 14 September 2023, Chandra Shekhar stirred a controversy at an event on Hindi Diwas as he compared the Hindu religious book Ramcharitmanas to potassium cyanide, a poisonous compound.[4] He allegedly raised his voice against few paragraphs of Hindu mythology book "Ramcharitra Manas", which according to him is oppressive against Dalits, and these paragraphs should be revised. "If you serve 56 kinds of good dishes and mix potassium cyanide into them would you eat them, he reportedly questioned referring to some controversial paragraphs of Ramcharitra manas which is against backward and dalit castes. And said, "The same analogy applies to the Ramcharitramanas," he said.[5] Shekhar’s party colleagues backed his statement saying that RJD party's ideology is of social justice. However RJD's ally Janata Dal United (JDU) said that it disapproves of such comments.[6]