Jai Ram Thakur is an MLA from the Seraj constituency and the current Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. In 1998, Thakur was given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket from the Chachiot seat where he defeated Congress veteran Moti Ram Thakur by nearly 6,000 votes and made his maiden entry into the Assembly. After 1998, he did not look back and won consecutive polls from Chachiot in 2003 and 2007 by huge margins. It was before the constituency became Seraj in the 2007 delimitation. In 2012, he defeated Tara Thakur of Congress. In 2017, he registered his biggest victory so far by defeating his rival by 11,254 votes. He was the Minister of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development from 2009 to 2012 in the Prem Kumar Dhumal government. Born in Tandi of Mandi district, he graduated from a government college. He was the first to become the Chief Minister from the Mandi district after Prem Kumar Dhumal, the BJP's CM face, lost the elections from the Sujanpur constituency in 2017.