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A look at Nitish Kumar’s political career through the years
As Nitish Kumar aims for a fourth straight term as the chief minister this year, his party is facing one of the toughest election battles.
Nitish Kumar, in a stunning announcement while wrapping up his campaign for the Bihar assembly polls, said at a rally on November 5 that this would be his last election. The Bihar chief minister was campaigning for a candidate of his Janata Dal(United) or JD(U) in Purnia when he made the comments. “This is the last day of the election. The day after this election will end and this is my last election. Ant bhala to sab bhala (All’s well that ends well),” he said.
As Kumar’s comments set fire to retirement speculations, sources close to the 69-year-old leader clarified that he meant that it was the last meeting of the Bihar Assembly Election 2020. As Nitish Kumar aims for a fourth straight term as the chief minister this year, his party is facing one of the toughest election battles.
Here’s a look at Nitish Kumar’s political career through the years:
1985: Nitish Kumar is elected to the state assembly
1989: Kumar backs Lalu Prasad Yadav in bagging the chair of the Leader of Opposition in the assembly
1996: Switches loyalty to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
1998 to 2004: Serves in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee in various capacities as the railways, surface transport and agriculture minister
March 2000: Kumar is elected as the chief minister of Bihar for the first time as he allies with the BJP-led NDA. The NDA and its allies had 151 MLA whereas Lalu Prasad Yadav had 159 MLA in 324-member house. Both alliances were less than the majority mark that is 163 and Nitish resigned before he could prove his numbers in the house
Click here for the complete coverage of Bihar assembly elections.
2004 Lok Sabha elections: Contests elections from two places and is elected from Nalanda but lost from his traditional Barh constituency
November 2005: Kumar becomes Bihar’s chief minister for the second time with the BJP as the coalition partner
2010: Kumar’s party sweeps back to power along with its then allies, the BJP, and he again became the chief minister. The alliance won 206 seats, while the RJD bagged 22
June 2013: Breaks alliance with the BJP after Narendra Modi was nominated the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate
May 2014: Kumar resigns after his party fared poorly in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, winning just two seats against 20 in the previous election
February 2015: Allies with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and contests the assembly elections, forming the Mahagathbandhan with the Congress as another constituent
2016 and 2017: Corruption charges are levelled against Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the then deputy chief minister, Kumar asks the RJD leader to resign from the cabinet. Yadav refuses to do so and Kumar resigns on July 26, 2017, thus ending the Grand Alliance. He joined the principal opposition, the NDA, and came back to power within a few hours.
