Nitish Bharadwaj is one of the most popular and successful faces of Indian entertainment industry. He became household name after playing the role of Lord Krishna in B.R. Chopra's epic television series Mahabharat (1988). Born in Marathi Brahaman Bhardwaj gotra, before coming into the field of acting, Nitish was a professional veterinary surgeon and had worked as an assistant veterinarian at a racecourse in Mumbai; however, he left the job considering it a monotonous one. He started his arts career with his training in Marathi theatre as a director. He then moved on to professional Marathi theatre and later shifted to Hindi theatre. He later did a Hindi mythological play Chakravyuh, in which he reappears as Lord Krishna. In 1988 Bharadwaj was selected to play the lead role of Lord Krishna in B. R. Chopra's classic television series Mahabharat (1988). He played the role at the age of 23 and became an overnight star. Later he also played lead roles in Chopra's 2 more mythological shows Vishnu Puran (2000) & Ramayan (2002). Bharadwaj has starred in many Marathi & Hindi movies. In 2013 Bharadwaj made his film direction debut with a Marathi film titled Pithuran. Bharadwaj also contested the parliamentary elections from Jamshedpur and Rajgarh (in Madhya Pradesh) as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and was elected to Lok Sabha as a Member of Parliament from Jamshedpur in 1996, by defeating veteran Inder Singh Namdhari.