The Samata Party is a political party in India. Initially formed as an offshoot of the Janata Dal in 1994 by Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes. The reason given was that the Janata Dal had shifted to casteism. The party has socialist leanings and is of considerable political and social influence in North India.

In the 1996 general elections, Samata Party came into alliance with Bharatiya Janta Party and won on eight seats, six in Bihar and one each in Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. Before this it was largely based in Bihar only. In 1998 general elections, again in alliance with Bharatiya Janta Party it won twelve seats, ten from Bihar and two from Uttar Pradesh.

In the 13th Lok Sabha (1999–2004), it had 12 (out of 545) members.

In October 2003, Fernandes, the president of the party, announced that the party would be merging with the Janata Dal (United). The Janata Dal (United) was part of the ruling coalition in the National Democratic Alliance. One minority in the party led by Brahmanand Mandal refused to go along with the merger. The Election Commission of India decided that the merger was not technically complete and so a faction was allowed to function under the name of Samata Party.

Sharad Yadav, a politician from the Janata Dal (United) party, is currently^[when?] a member of the Parliament of India representing the Madhepura constituency of Bihar in the Lok Sabha. He had also represented Bihar in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.

He is also the current^[when?] convener of the NDA

He was also a member of the Indian Parliament from the Jabalpur constituency in Madhya Pradesh in 1977.

Sharad Yadav, along with others, were named in infamous multi-crore Hawala scandal for receiving 300,000 rupees towards a party fund. He was acquitted by Delhi High Court citing many reasons including that he did not confess and there was a lack of evidence of his guilt.

Arun Jaitley (Hindi:अरुण जेटली ) (born 28 December 1952) is a prominent Indian politician and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently the largest Opposition party in India. He is the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha and has previously served as the Union Minister for commerce, industry, law and justice of the Government of India.

He was born to Kishen and Ratan Prabha Jaitley. Born to a lawyer father, he did his schooling at St. Xavier's School, New Delhi from 1969-70.^{[citation needed]} He graduated in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi in 1973. He passed his Law degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, in 1977. During his career as a student, he was the recipient of several distinctions for his outstanding performances both in academics and extra curricular activities. He was President of the Students Union of Delhi University in 1974.

Jaitley was an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) student leader in the Delhi University Campus in the seventies and rose to be President of the University Students' Union in 1974. During the period of proclamation of Internal Emergency (1975–77) when civil liberties were suspended, he was under preventive detention for a period of 19 months. He was a prominent leader of a movement against corruption launched in the year 1973 by Raj Narain and Jai Prakash Narayan. He was the Convenor of the National Committee for Students and Youth organisation appointed by Jai Prakash Narayan. He was also active in civil rights movement and helped found PUCL Bulletin along with Satish Jha and Smitu Kothari. After being released from jail he joined Jan Sangh.

Arunkumar is an Indian film editor and director.

Arun Kumar is the director of Cocktail and Ee adutha kalathu and , owns to his credit a span of 11 years experience as a Film Editor in this industry. Arun, who hails from Thiruvananthapuram, had done his schooling in the prestigious St.Thomas Residential School, graduation from M.G.College, Trivandrum and later on moved to Chennai to master visual effects from Pentamedia.He started his career as visual effect artist in Pentamedia

Arun Kumar has been director Priyadarshan's, principal editor from ‘Vettam' (2004) onwards] before he turned to filmmaking with Cocktail. He edited Kanchivaram which got National Award for the Best Film in 2008. He had also worked with other well- known directors like T.K Rajeev Kumar, Shaji Kailas, Suresh Krishna.

Arun had also been nominated for Shantharam Award and National award for best editing (Kancheevaram). Arun is the winner of 2011 Asianet Ujala Film Award & Mathrubhumi-Kalyan Film Award for the Best Editor.