Nitish Bharadwaj (born 2 June 1963) is an Indian television and film actor, director, screenwriter, film and TV programme producer, veterinarian (veterinary surgeon) graduate from Mumbai Veterinary college and former Member of Parliament in Lok Sabha.

Before coming into the field of acting, Bharadwaj was a professional veterinary surgeon and had worked as an assistant veterinarian at a Race Course 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, under stalwarts such as Sudha Karmarkar, Dr. Kashinath Ghanekar and Prabhakar Panshikar.

[6] In 1988 Bharadwaj was selected to play the lead role of Lord Krishna in B. R. Chopra's classic television series Mahabharat.

After Njan Gandharvan, Padmarajan was planning a film with Mohanlal and Bharadwaj in lead roles, but he died before it could materialise.

Recently in 2020 he appeared on screen as a Sudarshan Chakrapani in a Marathi web series Samantar which was telecasted on mx player.

Nitish Bharadwaj was born on 2 June 1963 to Janardan C. Upadhye, a Senior Advocate of Bombay High Court and a veteran labour lawyer.

Bharadwaj's mother, Sadhana Upadhye, was the Head of the Marathi Literature department of Wilson College, Mumbai.

Bharadwaj married Smita Gate, an IAS officer (1992 batch) from Madhya Pradesh cadre, in 2009 and they have twin daughters.