Yadav's involvement with politics started in 1970 when he became the president of Jabalpur University Student Association. He was active in the
Bihar Student Movement and was greatly influenced by the socialist ideas of
Jayaprakash Narayan and
Ram Manohar Lohia. in Bihar, twice from
Jabalpur Yadav was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time at the age of 27 from
Jabalpur in 1974 in a by-poll after the death of incumbent
Seth Govind Das. At a time when the
JP Movement was at its peak, he won the by-poll for
Bharatiya Lok Dal while still in jail. When the Janata Party split in 1979, he sided with
Charan Singh's faction. When Rajiv Gandhi first entered the Lok Sabha by winning a by-poll from Amethi in 1981, Sharad Yadav was the losing candidate for Lok Dal. He contested the
1984 general election as a Lok Dal candidate from Badaun, which he lost against
Saleem Iqbal Shervani of Congress. He was elected as a Member of Parliament from
Rajya Sabha for the first time in 1986. Yadav won the Badaun seat in the
1989 general election under the
Janata Dal party, with
INC's
Ram Naresh Yadav being the runner-up. In an election dominated by the
Bofors scandal, INC failed to form the government despite being the single largest party. Yadav emerged as one of the major players of the left-wing opposition coalition supporting
V. P. Singh as the prime ministerial candidate, with external support from
BJP. He was one of the most powerful members of the cabinet and exerted pressure on V. P. Singh to implement the
Mandal Commission report on
reservations for
OBCs in 1990, which led to
widespread protests and brought
Caste politics to the forefront. He retained the seat in
1996 general election defeating the
Samata Party's Anand Mandal. He contested the
1999 general election from Madhepura against Lalu Prasad again and won this time. Deve Gowda split from Janata Dal to form
Janata Dal (Secular); the remainder of the party led by Sharad Yadav would come to be called as Janata Dal (United). a position which be held from 13 October 1999 – 1 September 2001. and was once quoted saying "In this country where crores of people have no other mode of transport but walking, concern for aviation is very elitist." His portfolio was changed from Aviation to the
Ministry of Labour and Employment in the September 2001 cabinet reshuffle. In the July 2002 cabinet reshuffle, he was shifted to the
Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. In the
2004 general election, he contested the Madhepura seat in Bihar against Lalu Prasad. Lalu contested this election from two seats, Madhepura and
Chhapra, and won both. Lalu Prasad later gave up the Madhepura seat and the ensuing bypoll to fill the vacancy was won by RJD's
Pappu Yadav. In the
2009 general election, Sharad Yadav won the Madhepura seat by a comfortable margin of 175,000 votes against RJD's Ravindra Charan Yadav. Sharad Yadav won the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat a total of four times; in 1991, 1996, 1999 and 2009. He was one of the accused in the
hawala scandal; however, the charges were dismissed by the Supreme Court of India.
Loktantrik Janata Dal Yadav founded the
Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) in May 2018, after disassociating himself from the
Nitish Kumar-led
Janata Dal (United) in the wake of its alliance with the
Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar. A merger with
Bahujan Mukti Party (founded on 6 December 2012) was proposed but was called off. == Personal life ==