New Alliance, Same Nitish Kumar – Bihar Chief Minister’s Record 9th Oath

Nitish Kumar took oath today as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record ninth time, at the head of a fresh government formed in partnership with the BJP. Mr Kumar is replacing his ministers from the Rashtriya Janata Dal with those from the BJP and party leaders Samrat Chowdhury, Vijay Sinha and several others also took oath along with him at the Raj Bhavan this afternoon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the new governmnet with a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“The NDA government formed in Bihar will leave no stone unturned for the development of the state and to fulfill the aspirations of its people. I congratulate @NitishKumar. as Chief Minister and Samrat Chaudhary ji and Vijay Sinha ji on taking oath as Deputy Chief Ministers. I am confident that this team will serve my family members of the state with full dedication,” read a rough translation of his post. 

This is also the fifth time in a decade the 72-year-old has changed camp — the frequency of the process having earned him the pejorative “Paltu Kumar”.

Mr Kumar had parted company with the BJP last in 2022. At the time, the Chief Minister was concerned that the BJP could engineer a split in his Janata Dal United as they did in Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena.

While joining the NDA fold again today, he cited his disappointment with the Opposition bloc, saying though he got the front up and running, very little was being done by the others.

“The new Grand Alliance that we created (in August 2022) is not in a good condition. The situation is not looking good,” he said,

“I have been working hard to make a successful, meaningful (INDIA) alliance, but no one else (in the alliance) has been doing anything… Gathbandhan main bhi gadbad chal rahan hai (something is wrong in the alliance). People are not happy,” he had told reporters.

Sources, though,  said Mr Kumar has been upset over the lack of clarity in INDIA bloc’s poll preparations and being passed over as a possible Prime Ministerial candidate. The delays to seat-sharing talks for the Lok Sabha polls had been a further aggravation.