Kamakhya Narain Singh
Maharaja Bahadur Kamakhya Narain Singh Bahadur of Ramgarh, Jharkhand was the zamindar of Ramgarh Raj and later a politician. He belonged to the Narain Dynasty.
He was educated at Rajkumar College, Raipur and at Mayo College, Ajmer. He became the Raja of Ramgarh in 1919 upon death of his father, Raja Lakshmi Narain Singh. He formed his own political party and was a prominent leader in Bihar at that time. His family was the first family in India to use helicopters in election campaign. He served as the Vice-President of the Bihar Landholder's Association and the All India Kshatriya Mahasabha. He was also Member of the Managing Committee and General Council of Rajkumar College; Member of the Executive Body of the Bihar War Committee. He served as president of Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha in 1943 and 1953.
He was married to Maharani Lalita Rajya Lakshmi Devi, daughter of Supradipta Manyabara Lt. Gen. Maharajkumar Singha Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana of Nepal in 1936. They had a son, Indra Jitendra Narain Singh.
He entered politics in 1946 following the formal accession of the Ramgarh state into the Indian Republic. In 1952 Bihar Assembly elections, he contested from Dhanbad as a candidate of Swatantra Party but was defeated by a noted freedom-fighter and labor rights leader, Purushottam K. Chauhan. Later in the Bihar Assembly Elections of 1967, serious opposition was offered by the Raja Bahadur's Swatantra Party to the ruling Congress government. The Raja Bahadur and his younger brother, Dr. Basant Narain Singh, became Cabinet Ministers in the government headed by Chief Minister of Bihar, Mahamaya Prasad Sinha. He resigned from the party because he was not made the Deputy Chief Minister. In late 1960s, Kamakhya Narayan Singh was popularly an aspirant for Rajput supremacy in Bihar against Rajput stalwart, Sri Satyendra Narayan Sinha but was outmanoeuvred. His party later merged with the Janata party. Many of his family members became important political functionaries and legislators.
Singh died of cardiac arrest at 12:25 a.m. on 7 May 1970 at his residence in Calcutta. In the days preceding his death, he had complained of an abdomen problem. He was cremated on the banks of a river two miles from his Padma, his place of birth near Hazaribagh in Bihar.
