Mr. Nitish, who gained a document tenth time period in energy simply three months in the past, has been broadly credited with rescuing Bihar from the morass of governance on the flip of the century and criticized for his political woes over the previous decade, however now he’s set to relinquish the chief minister’s chair in a surprising political denouement.
In some ways, Mr. Kumar’s repeated makes an attempt to the touch Mr. Modi’s ft are a prelude to the political developments presently unfolding in Patna, marking the end result of an extended and unlikely path from visceral disgust to outright posturing.
In any case, Mr. Kumar as soon as referred to as off his 17-year alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Occasion in 2013, discovering Mr. Modi too politically objectionable. “We can’t have a divisive individual… There may be no compromise with this one that threatens our concord,” Kumar was quoted as saying after the Bharatiya Janata Occasion appointed Modi to go its 2014 parliamentary election marketing campaign, successfully making him the celebration’s prime minister. candidate.
On the time, the middle of Indian politics had not but taken a decisive rightward flip, so Nitish’s antipathy towards Modi was not tough to clarify. Particularly for a person steeped within the beliefs of socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia, who obtained his political baptism in the course of the Sampoerna Kranti motion, spearheaded by Jayaprakash Narayan, in opposition to the Indira Gandhi-led Congress.
Born in 1951 in Bakhtiyarpur close to Patna, Nitish was a person of quiet nature and moved to the state capital in 1966 to check at Patna Science Faculty. He then pursued a level in electrical engineering from Bihar Institute of Expertise in 1973.
Submitted nomination paperwork for Rajya Sabha. pic.twitter.com/R9mDOHUfYr
— Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) March 5, 2026
Nitish’s first style of politics was throughout his time at Patna Science Faculty when he joined the Samajwadi Yuvjan Sabha, the youth wing of Ram Manohar Lohia’s Samyukt Socialist Occasion. He later served because the president of Bihar Abhyantran Mahavidyaleh College students Union (BAMSU).
His early years in Patna coincided with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s regular rise within the state’s political circles as a scholar chief. However the distinction between Nitish, who’s imbued with etiquette and etiquette, and Lal, whose attraction relies on unabashed rustic attraction, couldn’t have been extra stark.
Nitish even campaigned for Lalu, who bagged the coveted publish of president of Patna College College students’ Union. On the similar time, he turned a member of the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti, which spearheaded the protests and demonstrations that have been roiling Bihar on the time, deepening his involvement with the JP motion.
Additionally learn: Modi Nitish then and now — two pictures taken 13 years aside mirror a ‘cycle full circle’
Solely fixed in Bihar
Through the state of emergency, he was arrested and imprisoned beneath the Upkeep of Inner Safety Act (MISA).
Regardless of being an early activist, Nitish’s marketing campaign started with a setback. He misplaced two consecutive parliamentary elections from the Harnot constituency, in 1977 as a candidate of the Janata Occasion and once more in 1980 as a consultant of its splinter faction, the Lok Dal.
The stalling of Nitish’s political ambitions left him bitter and disillusioned and soured his relationship together with his spouse Manju, whom he married in 1973. At one level, Nitish is alleged to have informed her that he would give up politics if he didn’t win the third election. Manju, who had donated Rs 22,000 as marketing campaign fund, supported him.
Within the 1985 meeting elections, Nitish ran an organized marketing campaign with help from Janata stalwarts Chandra Shekhar and Devi Lal and gained the Harnaut seat as a Lok Dal candidate by a margin of over 22,000 votes.
4 years later, in 1989, he was elected to Parliament as a Janata Dal candidate and returned once more in 1991, however the nation entered a interval of political turmoil marked by the decline of the Congress and the rise of regional events, a lot of them splinters of the Janata Parivar that had nurtured leaders comparable to Nitish and Lalu.
In 1990, when he was the minister of state in Vice President Singh’s authorities on the Centre, Nitish performed a key function in Lalu’s elevation as Bihar chief minister. For the following 15 years, Lalu rode the wave of Mandal politics and steadily strengthened his grip on state politics, marginalizing contemporaries like Nitish, and this determination would show to be his greatest downfall.
“By 1992, Nitish had grow to be irreconcilable with Lalu Yadav,” the late Sankarshan Thakur wrote in his e book. Bihari brothersan acclaimed biography depicting the rise, fall, friendship and rivalry of two leaders who got here to form Bihar’s politics for nearly 4 many years, Nitish’s journey just about got here to an finish on Thursday.
“After we labored to elect you, we believed that you’d undo corruption and misgovernment beneath Congress guidelines. However none of that occurred, and also you appear to be desirous about nothing greater than perpetuating your place of energy and pandering to your coterie,” Nitish wrote in a letter to Lal. politics of letters By journalist Srikanth.
In 1994, Nitish parted methods with Lalu and teamed up with George Fernandes to type the Samata Occasion. A lot of that formation was later merged with the Janata Dal (United) in 2003, with Nitish remaining on the helm. He first allied himself with the United Entrance after which with the Bharatiya Janata Occasion and achieved success within the 1996, 1998 and 1999 Sabah state elections.
However regardless of Nitish’s success in nationwide politics all through the Nineties, energy in Bihar remained elusive. Regardless of struggling setbacks, together with a jail sentence for a fodder rip-off and being pressured to cede the prime ministership to his spouse, Rabri Devi, Lalu held on to a formidable Muslim help base of Yadavs.
Within the 2000 meeting elections, the JD(U)-BJP alliance gained two seats greater than the ruling RJD. The NDA authorities on the Middle, by the Governor, made Nitish the Chief Minister for the primary time on March 3, 2000.
The federal government lasted solely per week and collapsed after failing to muster the required numbers to show a majority on the ground of parliament. In the identical yr, carvings have been carried out from Bihar to Jharkhand. This was a measure that Mr. Lall would by no means have authorized with out the help of Congress.
Thakur writes in his e book that Nitish turned an unintended political beneficiary of that call. The undivided state of Bihar attracted 324 members and despatched 54 MPs to Sabah. After the partition, the parliament was diminished to 243 members and the variety of seats in Sabah was diminished to 40.
“Within the outdated pact, the Bharatiya Janata Occasion was Nitish’s senior ally in Bihar, because it claimed nearly all of the seats in Jharkhand. The brand new, smaller state of Bihar meant that Nitish turned a serious shareholder within the alliance. 25 out of 40 Lok Sabha states139 out of 243 members of the Weight-reduction plan will eat the meal. Slowly he began controlling the Bihar league. He selected the seats himself and laid down the bottom guidelines, however the primary factor was to set the agenda and beliefs within the Bihar plan,” Thakur mentioned.
In 2005, Nitish lastly emerged as a central determine in Bihar politics, however till Thursday he remained a relentless presence within the state’s political minefield. Though the primary parliamentary elections had considerably weakened the RJD, after rifts in mandates emerged, Mr. Lalu capitulated within the second spherical of elections later that yr, paving the way in which for Mr. Nitish to finish his first five-year time period.
Throughout his first time period as chief minister, Nitish launched into a change of Bihar’s governance, significantly by way of infrastructure and legislation and order, whereas assiduously constructing a loyal voter bloc among the many Economically Backward Courses (EBCs) and garnering help from non-dominant OBCs, Muslims and higher castes.
“The BJP has utterly taken over Nitish Kumar. This was confirmed at this time!”@yadavtejashwi#RJD #Tejashwiyadav #Bihar pic.twitter.com/M6YRRbzOqN
— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) March 5, 2026
5 years later, his hustle was rewarded with 115 seats, the JD(U)’s highest ever. Nitish, who had been attracting lots of consideration in political circles as a future prime ministerial candidate, now has a star within the sky.
It was round this time that Mr. Modi started to make his presence felt in nationwide political discourse. For years, Mr. Nitish has averted even mentioning Mr. Modi’s title in public and has ensured that the Bharatiya Janata Occasion retains him out of Bihar’s political plans.
Forward of the 2009 normal elections, the reluctant Japanese-American was persuaded by the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani and Bharatiya Janata Occasion chief Arun Jaitley to take part in an NDA rally in Ludhiana. Prime Minister Modi held Nitish’s hand on stage and held it aloft in entrance of a cheering crowd, an motion that reportedly infuriated the Bihar chief minister.
In 2010, it returned 5 billion rupees of aid cash donated by Modi’s Gujarat state authorities to victims of the 2008 Kosi floods. And as talked about above, he severed ties with the JDU and the BJP in 2013 after it turned clear that Mr. Modi can be the celebration’s prime ministerial candidate.
flip flop
The Bharatiya Janata Occasion’s landslide victory within the 2014 normal elections, which additionally decimated the JD(U) in Bihar, upset Nitish. Taking ethical duty for the defeat, he resigned as prime minister and changed him with Jitan Ram Manji. A number of months later, he returned to his publish and, with uncommon political comfort, teamed up with Lalu Prasad Yadav to ship the Bharatiya Janata Occasion a crushing defeat within the 2015 meeting polls.
Nevertheless, inside two years, he returned to the NDA fold and once more aligned himself with the BJP, abandoning the RJD. Though the JD(U) suffered a serious blow within the 2020 meeting elections, Nitish retained the chief minister’s publish in coalition with the BJP. In 2022, he switched sides once more and joined forces with the RJD, Congress and Left to type a brand new authorities and stay on the helm.
By 2024, because the nation heads in direction of Lok Sabha elections once more, Nitish, regardless of his intention to steer the Indian bloc, couldn’t title the Indian bloc because the convener, so he jumped ship once more and deserted the Indian bloc. “I am not going wherever now,” Nitish, then broadly generally known as “Parthu Ram” for his frequent political somersaults, mentioned when requested about his future.
Nitish returned to energy in November 2025 with a snug mandate, together with his celebration JDU profitable 85 seats and the BJP-led NDA profitable 202 of the 243 seats within the Bihar Meeting.
At the same time as Mr. Nitish continued to carry the reins of energy, the uproar over his obvious well being and failing reminiscence continued to rise, together with his putting flower pots on officers’ heads at authorities occasions and his graphic remarks whereas explaining contraception in Parliament. was fueled by a collection of surprising public episodes, together with gesturing and making remarks in the course of the nationwide anthem, knocking down a Muslim medical scholar’s hijab throughout an interplay, and really attempting to the touch Mr. Modi’s ft.
For a person who, in a second of disappointment after an early electoral defeat, had as soon as vowed to accumulate energy “by trick or by trick” and use it to do good work, Nitish’s political journey finally turned a narrative not about governing however about political survival.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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