I. Birth
Annpurna Devi was born on 2 February 1970. The Lok Sabha’s member record gives her place of birth as Ajmeri, in Dumka. In 1970 Dumka lay in the Santhal Parganas of undivided Bihar; three decades later, in November 2000, it became part of the new state of Jharkhand.
Her parents are recorded by the Lok Sabha as Shri Taraprasanna Mahto and Smt. Rewati Devi. Beyond these names, no official source consulted for this website describes her parents’ occupations or her childhood, and none is supplied here.
On what is not recorded. Reliable public information about her childhood, schooling and early family life is not available in the official records consulted. This chapter does not reconstruct those years with anecdote; it sets out the documented facts and, separately, the historical context of the region.
II. Kariyabar and Koderma
The Ministry of Women and Child Development describes her as hailing from the village of Kariyabar in Koderma district, and the Lok Sabha lists her permanent address there, in the post office area of Karma. Koderma is the district she would go on to represent in the Bihar and Jharkhand assemblies and, from 2019, in the Lok Sabha.
III. Education
She is a post-graduate of Ranchi University — a qualification recorded identically by the Lok Sabha and by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Her affidavit filed for the 2024 general election specifies a post-graduate degree in History from Ranchi University. The year of completion is not published in these sources.
IV. Marriage and family
The Lok Sabha records her marriage on 13 March 1993, and two sons and a daughter. Her 2024 election affidavit names her late husband as Ramesh Prasad Yadav.
V. Entry into electoral politics
The year 1998 is the first in her public record: the Lok Sabha lists her as a Member of the Bihar Legislative Assembly from 1998 to 2000. Press accounts — including a PTI profile of June 2024 and an Outlook report of May 2026 — state that her husband, who had represented Koderma in the Assembly, died in 1998, and that she entered electoral politics by contesting the by-election that followed. The accounts differ on his party affiliation, and PTI dates the by-election to 1999; the official record of her Assembly membership begins in 1998.
What followed is set out in the Public Journey chapter: a ministerial post in Bihar in 2000, a decade in the Jharkhand Assembly, a Cabinet portfolio in Ranchi, and then Parliament.