Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, better known as B.P. Koirala (1914-1982), was one of the presidents of the Nepali Congress Party. He founded the Nepali National Congress, which in 1950 became the Nepali Congress Party, while in exile in India with his father Krisha Prasad Koirala, who is regularly referred to as the follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
"He was not only a leader of Modern Renaissance," said former Prime Minister of Chandra Shekhar.
He was also active in the quick india movement led by Mahatma Gandhi while still young, joining the Indian Congress Party in 1924. Koirala was educated first at Banaras Hindu University, took a law degree from Calcutta University in 1937 and practiced law for several years in Darjeeling, the northern district in West Bengal state, India.
During World War II the British interned him in Dhanbad for two years (1942-1944). After his release, the political situation in India was taking shape for liberation. In the midst of this he set his strategies to bring change to Nepal. He was imprisoned in Nepal in 1947-1948 on reaching his hometown Biratnagar to lead a labor demonstration at Biratnagat Jute Mill. A year later he was arrested again, but was soon released after a 27-day hunger strike, protests and intervention of then Indian Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru.
Politics was his inborn quality. He used to say, "There was politics in the blood of my family. My father had to leave Nepal when I was three years old. Everyone in the family had a warrant of arrest against him; our entire property was confiscated. We were in exile in India for twelve years." After years of struggle against the Rana regime of Nepal from exile, Nepali Congress Party finally won victory and established democracy in Nepal in 1951.
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