[3][4] Pandit Mangat Ram had created history by becoming the first Deputy Chief Minister from the Congress.
In 1984, Devi Das Thakur, a Supreme Court lawyer, became the first Deputy Chief Minister from the Jammu region in the government headed by GM Shah.
Mangat Ram had effectively handled the controversial Jammu and Kashmir Permanent Residents Women (Disqualification) Bill in 2004 and saved the then coalition regime.
He resigned from government service as Block Development Officer and joined active politics in the 1960s.
In 1972, he entered the Assembly from the Basohli segment of Kathua district in the Jammu region on Congress ticket.