Jagannath Mishra was an Indian politician who served as Chief Minister of Bihar and as minister in the Union cabinet. Involved at a high level in the Indian National Congress, he was elected Chief Minister of Bihar three times. After his brother L.N Mishra's assassination, Jagannath Mishra became arguably Bihar's most powerful Congress leader for much of the late seventies and eighties. Prior to the emergence of the social justice forces under Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1990, Jagannath, by all accounts, was rated as the biggest mass leader in the Congress. He was referred to as "Maulana" Jagannath because of his clout with the Muslims that he had earned by making Urdu as the second official language of the state in 1980.