He was born in Nemra village of Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand States and territories of India. He completed his schooling from the same district. After schooling, he got married and decided to work with his father who was a farmer. He has three sons Durga, Hemant, Basant and a daughter Anjali.

He started his political career in the early 1970s and rose to become a tribal leader. On 23 January 1975, he was alledly part of a mob that attacked the Muslim-dominated Chirudih village in Jamtara district in a campaign to drive away “outsiders”, a term used to describe non-tribals. Ten people including nine Muslims were killed in the attack. Along with sixty eight others, he was charged with murder.

He lost his first Lok Sabha election in 1977. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980. In 1986, an arrest warrant was issued against him. He was subsequently elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989, 1991 and 1996 as well. In 2002, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He won the Dumka Lok Sabha seat in a by-election the same year and resigned his Rajya Sabha seat. He was re-elected in 2004.

He became the Union Coal Minister in the Manmohan Singh government, but was asked to resign following an arrest warrant in his name in the thirty-year old Chirudih case. After the warrant was issued, he initially went underground. He resigned on 24 July 2004. He was able to secure bail after spending over a month in judicial custody; released on bail in September 8, he was re-inducted into the Union Cabinet and given back the coal ministry on 27 November 2004, as part of a deal for a Congress-JMM alliance before assembly elections in Jharkhand in February/March 2005[2].

On 2 March 2005, he was invited to form the government in Jharkhand by the Governor of Jharkhand, Syed Sibtey Razi. He resigned as Chief Minister nine days later, on 11 March, following his failure to obtain a vote of confidence in the assembly.

Again after 3 years on 25th of August 2008 he has been invited by the state governor to form his government….