Nitish Kumar

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**Nitish Kumar**
Born	March 1, 1951 Bakhtiarpur, Patna
Office	Chief Minister of Bihar
Successor	Incumbent
Political party	Janata Dal (United)
Spouse	Smt. Manju Kumari Sinha
Children	One son
As of June 18, 2006 Source: Government of India

Nitiś Kumār (Hindi: नितीश कुमार) (born March 1, 1951, Bakhtiarpur, Bihar, India) is the Chief Minister of the north Indian state of Bihar. He is one of the leaders of Janata Dal (United) party.

[edit] Political career

Kumar graduated from Bihar College of Engineering with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering. He was involved in the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan between 1974 and 1977, and was close, among others, to Satyendra Narayan Sinha, a prominent leader of the time.

He was first elected to the Bihar legislative assembly in 1985. In 1987, he became the president of the Yuva Lok Dal. In 1989, he became the Secretary-General of the Janata Dal in Bihar. He was also elected to the 9th Lok Sabha that year.

In 1990, he became the Union Minister of State for Agriculture. In 1991, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and became General Secretary of the Janata Dal at the national level and Deputy Leader of Janata Dal in Parliament. He represented Barh parliamentary constituency (Bihar) in the Lok Sabha between 1989 and 2004. He briefly served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways and Surface Transport and then as the Minister for Agriculture in 1998-99. In August 1999, he resigned following the railway accident at Gaisal in North East India.

In 2000, he was made the Chief Minister of Bihar but had to resign in 7 days. Later that year, he rejoined the Union Cabinet as Minister for Agriculture. From 2001 to May 2004, he served as the Union Cabinet Minister for Railways in the NDA government of Atal Behari Vajpayee. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he contested elections from two constituencies, Barh and Nalanda. He was elected from Nalanda but lost from his traditional constituency, Barh. He was the leader of the Janata Dal (United) Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha.

In November 2005, he led theNational Democratic Alliance to a victory in the Bihar Assembly elections bringing to an end the 15-year rule of the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal in the state. He was sworn in as chief minister of Bihar on November 24, 2005. As the Chief Minister of Bihar he also holds the Chairmanship of the L.N. Mishra Institute of Economic Development and Social Change a prominent business school of Bihar.