Nitish Kumar: Emperor of Bihar Politics on the Cusp of History
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar addresses a public meeting (Image credit JD U IT Cell)
Two decades after Lalu Prasad Yadav dismissed his chances of ever becoming Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar remains Bihar’s most enduring political figure—his legacy built on coalition craft and women-centric welfare.
By AMIT KUMAR
Patna, November 12, 2025 — In 2005, Lalu Prasad Yadav famously remarked in Parliament that “Nitish Kumar does not have it in his fate to become Chief Minister.” Two decades later, history has proved him wrong. Nitish Kumar has not only become Bihar’s longest-serving Chief Minister but also one of India’s most adaptable political survivors, redefining regional leadership through alliances, welfare schemes, and quiet resilience.
Nitish Kumar’s journey has been marked by perseverance through political uncertainty. He first became Chief Minister in March 2000, heading the Samata Party, but resigned within a week for lack of majority. In 2005, he faced two elections, first in February and second in November.
In February, Nitish was unlucky as the Manmohan Singh-led government denied him scope to engineer defections from ranks of other parties to cobble up majority. But November brought good tides. Since then, November has kept Nitish in good political health, winning four straight polls while he awaits his fifth stroke with destiny.
Born out of the 1974 students’ agitation, Nitish was most underrated among his peers—Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, and Sushil Kumar Modi—to emerge a mass leader. He spent his years in the shadow of Lalu Prasad Yadav until he parted ways to form Samta Party.
By then, he had formed camaraderie with Sushil Kumar Modi as the two bonded, travelling together to attend parliament sessions and meetings of standing committees. Nitish’s interests in parliament helped him gain attention of Arun Jaitley.
It would be Jaitley who would persuade the BJP top brass then to accept Nitish as the face of the alliance in Bihar. The BJP leadership in the state largely consisted of the upper castes. Nitish promised to an alternative social engineering in Bihar with mobilization of non-Yadav backward castes.
Since November 2005, Nitish Kumar and the Chief Minister’s chair became inseparable. Except for brief interruptions, he has remained in power for nearly two decades, often navigating between alliances with the BJP and RJD, adapting to Bihar’s shifting political tides with remarkable dexterity.
A defining chapter of his governance has been women’s empowerment. In 2007, Nitish launched the Bicycle Scheme for schoolgirls, a pioneering program that boosted female education and mobility in rural Bihar. Over time, his focus on women’s welfare—from financial assistance to employment and self-help group support—became the cornerstone of his political brand, influencing welfare politics nationwide.
Today, as Bihar awaits people’s verdict on Friday, Nitish Kumar’s legacy stands at an inflection point. Once dismissed as a “leader without destiny,” he has outlasted his rivals, reshaped the state’s politics, and redefined how welfare and identity intersect in Indian democracy.
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