22nd Chief Minister of BiharFor the cricketer, see Nitish *ar (cricketer).

Nitish *ar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician, who is serving as the 22nd Chief Minister of Bihar, a state in India, since 2015 and has served in that role on five previous occasions. He has also served as a Union minister in the Union Government of India.

*ar is a member of the Janata Dal (United) political party. As the chief minister, he appointed more than 100,000 school teachers, ensured that doctors worked in primary health centres, electrified many villages, paved roads, cut female illiteracy by half, turned around a lawless state by cracking down on criminals and doubled the income of the average Bihari.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi & Minister for consumer affairs, Ram Vilas Paswan visiting the Bihar Museum, in Patna, built during 6th tenure of Nitish *ar.

On 17 May 2014, *ar resigned, taking responsibility for his party's poor performance in the 2014 general elections, and was succeeded by Jitan Ram Manjhi. However, he returned to office in February 2015 following a political crisis in Bihar and won the state elections of November 2015. He was elected as the national president of his party on 10 April 2016. He resigned again on 26 July 2017 as Chief Minister of Bihar due to differences with the coalition partner, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), following the naming of Tejashwi Yadav, the Deputy Chief Minister and RJD member, in a First Information Report alleging corruption filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Hours later, he joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, which had thus far been the opposition, and secured a majority in the *embly. He became chief minister again on the following day. The Bihar government under *ar banned alcohol in the state in April 2016.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Early political career
• 3 Union Minister
• 4 Chief Minister of Bihar
  • 4.1 First term (2000–2000)
  • 4.2 Second term (2005–2010)
  • 4.3 Third term (2010–2014)
    • 4.3.1 Resignation
  • 4.4 Fourth term (2015 - 2020)
    • 4.4.1 Mahagathbandhan breakup
  • 4.5 Fifth term (2020– )
• 5 Biographies
• 6 Awards and recognition
• 7 Positions held
• 8 Also see
• 9 References
• 10 External links

Early life

*ar was born on 1 March 1951 in Bakhtiarpur, Bihar. His father, Kaviraj Ram Lakhan Singh, was an ayurvedic prac*ioner; his mother was Parmeshwari Devi. Nitish belongs to Kurmi agricultural caste.

He has earned a degree in Electrical Engineering from Bihar College of Engineering (now NIT Patna) in 1972. He joined the Bihar State Electricity Board, half-heartedly, and later moved into politics. He married Manju *ari Sinha (1955-2007) on 22 February 1973 and the couple has one son. Manju Sinha died in New Delhi on 14 May 2007 due to pneumonia.

Early political career

*ar belongs to a socialist cl* of politicians. During his early years as a politician he was *ociated with Ram Manohar Lohia, S. N. Sinha, Karpuri Thakur, and V. P. Singh. *ar participated in Jayaprakash Narayan's movement between 1974 and 1977 and joined the Janata party headed by Satyendra Narain Sinha.

*ar fought and first time won his election to the state *embly from Harnaut in 1985. In the initial years, Lalu Prasad Yadav was backed by *ar as leader of the opposition in Bihar *embly in the year 1989 but *ar later switched his loyalty to BJP in 1996, after winning his first Lok Sabha seat from Barh.

The Janata Dal had survived the splits in past when leaders like *ar and George Fernandes defected to form the Samata Party in 1994, but it remained a baseless party after the decision of Yadav to form Rashtriya Janata Dal in 1997. The second split took place prior to Rabri Devi *uming power which resulted in Janata Dal having only two leaders of any consequence in it, namely Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. Paswan was regarded as the rising leader of Dalits and had the credit of winning his elections with unprecedented margins. His popularity reached to the national level when he was awarded the post of Minister of Railways in the United Front government in 1996 and was subsequently made the leader of Lok Sabha. His outreach was witnessed in the western Uttar Pradesh too, when his followers organised an impressive rally at the behest of a newly floated organisation called Dalit Panthers.

Sharad Yadav was also a veteran socialist leader but without any m*ive support base. In the 1998 Parliamentary elections, the Samata Party and Janata Dal, which was in a much weaker position after the formation of RJD ended up eating each other's vote base. This made *ar merge both the parties to form Janata Dal (United).

In 1999, Lok Sabha elections Rashtriya Janata Dal received a setback at the hand of BJP+JD(U) combine. The new coalition emerged leading in 199 out of 324 *embly cons*uencies and it was widely believed that in the forthcoming election to Bihar state *embly elections, the Lalu-Rabri rule will come to an end. The RJD had fought the election in an alliance with the Congress but the coalition didn't work making state leadership of Congress believe that the maligned image of Lalu Prasad after his name was drawn in the Fodder Scam had eroded his support base. Consequently, Congress decided to fight the 2000 *embly elections alone.

The RJD had to be satisfied with the communist parties as coalition partners but the seat-sharing conundrum in the camp of National Democratic Alliance made *ar pull his Samta Party out of the Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan faction of the Janata Dal.Differences also arose between the BJP and *ar as the latter wanted to be projected as the Chief Minister of Bihar but the former was not in favour. Even Paswan also wanted to be a CM face. The Muslims and OBCs were too divided in their opinion. A section of Muslims, which included the poor communities like Pasmanda were of the view that Lalu only strengthened upper Muslims like Shaikh, Sayyid and Pathans and they were in search of new options.

Yadav also alienated other dominant backward castes like Koeri and Kurmi since his projection as the saviour of Muslims. It is argued by Sanjay *ar that the belief that, "the dominant OBCs like the twin caste of Koeri-Kurmi will ask for share in power if he (Yadav) seeks their support while the Muslims will remain satisfied with the protection during communal riots only" made Yadav neglect them. Moreover, the divisions in both the camps made the political atmosphere in the state a charged one in which many parties were fighting against each other with no visible frontiers. JD(U) and BJP were fighting against each other on some of the seats and so was the Samta Party. The result was a setback for the BJP, which in media campaigns was emerging with a m*ive victory. RJD emerged as the single largest party and with the political manoeuvring of Lalu Yadav, Rabri Devi was sworn in as the Chief Minister again. The media largely failed to gauge the ground level polarisation in Bihar. According to Sanjay *ar:

there can be no doubt about one thing that the upper-caste media was always anti-Lalu and it was either not aware of the ground level polarisation in Bihar, or deliberately ignored it. If the election result did not appear as a setback for RJD, it was largely because of the bleak picture painted by the media. Against this background, RJD's defeat had appeared like a victory.

Even after serving imprisonment in connection with the 1997 scam, Lalu seemed to relish his role as the lower-caste jester. He argued that corruption charges against him and his family were the conspiracy of the upper-caste bureaucracy and media elites threatened by the rise of peasant cultivator castes. In 2004, Lalu's RJD had outperformed other state-based parties by winning 26 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. He was awarded the post of Union Railway minister but the rising aspirations of the extremely backward castes unleashed by him resulted in JD(U) and BJP led coalition to defeat his party in 2005 Bihar *embly elections.

Union Minister

Union Minister for Railways Shri Nitish *ar entering Parliament to present Interim Railway Budget (2004-05) in New Delhi on January 30, 2004

Nitish was briefly, the Union Minister for Railways and Minister for Surface Transport and later, the Minister for Agriculture in 1998–99, in the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In August 1999, he resigned following the Gaisal train disaster, for which he took responsibility as a minister. However, in his short stint as Railway Minister, he brought in widespread reforms, such as internet ticket booking facility in 2002, opening a record number of railway ticket booking counters and introducing the tatkal scheme for instant booking.

Later that year, he rejoined the Union Cabinet as Minister for Agriculture. From 2001 to May 2004, he was – again – the Union Minister for Railways. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he contested elections from two places, when he was elected from Nalanda but lost from his traditional cons*uency, Barh.

Chief Minister of Bihar

Nitish *ar and Lalu Prasad Yadav discussing with the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh about the relief operations on flood-affected areas, in Bihar, August 28, 2008.

First term (2000–2000)

In March 2000, Nitish was elected Chief Minister of Bihar for the first time at the behest of the Vajpayee Government in the centre. NDA and allies had 151 MLAs whereas Lalu Prasad Yadav had 159 MLAs in the 324 member house. Both alliances were less than the majority mark that is 163. Nitish resigned before he could prove his numbers in the house.

Second term (2005–2010)

After victory in 2005 Bihar *embly elections, *ar a leader of OBC Kurmi caste was sworn in as the chief minister. During Lalu's time, backward caste candidates came to dominate the Bihar *embly claiming half of the seats in it and it was the aspiration of this powerful social community that led to friction among the united backwards, leading to the rise of *ar who made both social justice and development as his political theme.

Third term (2010–2014)

*ar's government also initiated bicycle and meal programs. Giving bicycles to girls who stayed in school resulted in the state getting a huge number of girls into schools and a reduction in school dropout rates.

In 2010, *ar's party swept back to power along with its then allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and he again became Chief Minister. The alliance won 206 seats, while the RJD won 22. For the first time, electorates witnessed high turnout of women and young voters, while this was declared as the fairest election in Bihar, with no bloodshed or poll violence.

Resignation

On 17 May 2014, *ar submitted his resignation to the Governor of Bihar, a day after his party fared poorly in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, winning just 2 seats against 20 seats in the previous election. *ar resigned, taking the moral responsibility of his party's poor performance in the election, and Jitan Ram Manjhi took over.

Fourth term (2015 - 2020)

*ar again became Chief Minister on 22 February 2015, on the backdrop of upcoming 2015 Bihar Legislative *embly election, considered to be his toughest election to date. His JD(U), along with RJD and Congress, formed the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) to counter the BJP in Bihar.

*ar campaigned aggressively during the elections for the Grand Alliance, countering the allegations raised by Narendra Modi and the BJP. The Grand Alliance won the *embly election by a margin of 178 over the BJP and its allies, with RJD emerging as the largest party with 80 seats and JD(U) placed second with 71. *ar was sworn in as Chief Minister on 20 November 2015 for a record fifth time and Tejashwi Yadav became Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar.

*ar's campaign was managed by the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) who were hired to managed the campaign for JD(U). I-PAC designed the campaign strategy which included reaching out to a larger set of voters through innovative campaigns, including sending hundreds of branded cycles for outreach, Har Ghar Dastak (door-to-door outreach) and the DNA campaign.

Mahagathbandhan breakup

When corruption charges were levelled against Tejashwi Yadav, the Deputy Chief Minister, *ar asked for him to resign from the cabinet. The Rashtriya Janata Dal refused to do so, and therefore *ar resigned on 26 July 2017, thus ending the Grand Alliance. He joined the principal opposition, the NDA, and came back to power within a few hours.

Fifth term (2020– )

Capitalising on his 15 years consecutive terms as Chief Minister, *ar highlighted various achievements and developments and listed various schemes carried out by his government and finally managed to get over a tightly contested election. NDA managed to get majority in Legislature *embly by winning 125 seats as compared to Mahagathbandhan's 110 seats. He was sworn in as Bihar Chief Minister for seventh time in 20 years in the presence of top leaders of NDA.

Biographies

Nitish *ar with Kerala Governor Nikhil *ar and Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.

• Sankarshan Thakur aut*d Single Man: The Life and Times of Nitish *ar of Bihar.
• Arun Sinha has aut*d a book *led Nitish *ar and The Rise of Bihar.

Awards and recognition

• Anuvrat Puraskar, by Shwetambar Terapanthi Mahasabha (Jain organisation), for enforcing total prohibition on liquor in Bihar, 2017
• JP Memorial Award, Nagpur's Manav Mandir, 2013
• Ranked 77th in Foreign Policy Magazine' top 100 global thinkers 2012
• XLRI, Jamshedpur Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for Industrial & Social Peace 2011
• "MSN Indian of the Year 2010"
• NDTV Indian of the Year – Politics, 2010
• Forbes' "India's Person of the Year", 2010
• CNN-IBN "Indian of the Year Award" – Politics, 2010
• NDTV Indian of the Year – Politics, 2009
• Economics Times "Business Reformer of the Year 2009"
• Polio Eradication Championship Award 2009, by Rotary International
• CNN-IBN Great Indian of the Year – Politics, 2008
• The Best Chief Minister, according to the CNN-IBN and Hindustan Times State of the Nation Poll 2007

Positions held

Also see

• List of politicians from Bihar

References

External links

• Official Blog
• Nitish *ar Website at Government of Bihar

• Longest-serving chief ministers
• Female chief ministers
• From the Bharatiya Janata Party
• From the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
• From the Indian National Congress