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'Paltu Ram' to 'Sushashan Babu': Nitish Kumar's 25 years as Bihar CM
Nitish Kumar, 75, assumed office as chief minister in a grand swearing-in ceremony at Patna's Gandhi Maidan attended by top NDA leaders.
As Nitish Kumar once again takes reins of Bihar as chief minister, he breaks record on two fronts- he is now the longest-serving chief minister of Bihar and also took oath for the tenth time.
Follow live updates on Nitish Kumar oath ceremony here
The 75-year-old leader assumed office as chief minister in a grand swearing-in ceremony at Patna's Gandhi Maidan attended by top leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, JP Nadda, and several union ministers, and chief ministers from at least seven states, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Maharashtra's Devendra Fadnavis and Gujarat's Bhupendra Patel.
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A look at Nitish Kumar's early days in politics
Kumar was born in Bihar's Bakhtiyarpur in 1951 and his tryst with politics began with with the JP Movement. He joined the Janata Party and unsuccessfully contested his first assembly elections in 1977. He marked his first electoral win only in 1985. His run for the chief ministerial post first began in 2000 when he took office for the shortest tenure of around a week.
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It happened soon after the BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani returned to power at the Centre in 1999. The party shifted focus to Bihar, and chose Nitish Kumar, then a Union minister, as the saffron party's face for the state.
His frequent switching of sides in his nearly five-decade-long political career earned him the nickname 'Paltu Ram', whereas he is also called 'Sushashan Babu' for his good governance.
Nitish Kumar’s shortest CM term in 2000
However, the February 2000 Bihar assembly election concluded in a hung verdict with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD winning 124 seats in the 324-member House, while the BJP-Samata Party-led NDA secured 122. Both were short of the majority mark of 163.
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Despite falling short, Governor Vinod Chandra Pande invited Nitish Kumar to form the government. Backed by 151 NDA and allied MLAs, Kumar took oath is on March 3, 2000 with backing from Vajpayee government at the Centre.
But RJD, which had 159 MLAs, also short of majority but numerically ahead, protested sharply. What ensued was a week of intense political manouvering with both camps trying to poach MLAs.
With neither side managing to muster the required numbers, the Nitish Kumar government collapsed on March 11, ending one of the shortest chief-ministerial terms in Bihar’s history.
