Phool Babu was born into an affluent Muslim Sheikh family in Gamhariya, a village in Rautahat District, some 90 kilometres east of Nepal's financial capitalBirgunj. His father, grand father and great grand father have very long history of ruling this area as Zamindar. He started his political career from Nepali Congress party and won the local election from Nepali Congress at the time when Communist Party UML were making a clean sweep in Nepalese local elections, 1997 and served as chairman of VDC Gamhariya thereafter. The local representatives that were elected in 1997 had their five-year terms expired at the height of the brutal Maoist insurgency. The 10-year war ended in 2006 and the country began a rocky transition from a Hindu monarchy to a secular federal republic, which has seen it cycle through nine governments. The long gap between polls has left an institutional void at local level, which has seen graft become a way of life in Nepal, hampering the delivery of basic services as well as the recovery from a devastating 2015 earthquake. During this transition period he served as De facto leader of this area.
The Madheshis and Tharus are non-Nepali speaking people forming 70% of Terai population residing in Terai region of Nepal who are culturally distinct from the hill people. This is the 60 years old dissatisfaction of Madheshi and Tharu that Nepal does not considers them as a Nepali, Nepal considers Madhesh as internal colony. The southern plains of Nepal – Terai belt should be an undivided federal state. This demand was revised such that there shall be two federal states in Terai. One from Jhapa to Chitwan called Madhesh and another from Chitwan to Kanchanpur called Tharuhat. These people think the demarcation of seven federal provinces in the constitution to be unfair. Only a patch of eight districts in the region were given the status of state in Terai; while the remaining 14 districts were carved with the hill districts with the sole purpose of converting the local people into minority. In doing so, the Madheshis and Tharus were sidelined in the entire constitution making process due to the distrust towards them. Due to this dissatisfaction he left Pahadi biased Political party Nepali Congress and join Madhesh based Party.
Nepalese local elections, 2017
Just before 2017 Nepalese local electionsGadhimai Municipality was formed by merging former 6 Village development committees Gamhariya, samanpur, Sangrampur, Bahuwa Madanpur, Dharampur and Bariyarpur. In 2017 Nepalese local elections he fought election for the Mayor from Gadhimai Municipality from Madhesh based Party,Rastriya Janata Party Nepal but lost to Nepali Congress Shyam Yadav with very little margin.
He has big influence on the public in Rautahat District and the people from his own and neighboring Municipality as well as Rautahat District giving him strong support to fight for Member of the Legislative Assembly in 2017 Nepalese provincial elections and thus he was expecting for Ticket from Madhesh based Rastriya Janata Party Nepal but due to some political unfairness, it was denied. As Public support was with him and he was confident that he will win Nepalese provincial elections, 2017. So, he registered for Member of the Legislative Assembly as an independent and won the election. He serves as Member of the Legislative Assembly in Pradesh Sabha in Province No. 2, Nepal and expecting to have a decisive role in Pradesh Sabha which is still in forming process.
