Nitish Kumar

Nitish Kumar
22nd Chief Minister of Bihar
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 July 2017
Deputy	Sushil Kumar Modi
Preceded by	Himself
In office 22 February 2015 – 26 July 2017
Deputy	Tejashwi Yadav
Preceded by	President's rule
In office 24 November 2005 – 17 May 2014
Deputy	Sushil Kumar Modi (upto 16 June 2013)
Preceded by	Rabri Devi
Succeeded by	Jitan Ram Manjhi
Minister of Railways
In office 3 March 2000 – 10 March 2000
Preceded by	Mamata Banerjee
Succeeded by	Lalu Prasad Yadav
In office 20 March 2001 – 21 May 2004
Preceded by	Ram Vilas Paswan
Succeeded by	Ram Naik
Minister of Agriculture
In office 19 March 1998 – 5 August 1999
In office 27 May 2000 – 21 July 2001
Minister of Surface Transport
In office 22 November 1999 – 3 March 2000
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
In office 13 October 1999 – 22 November 1999
In office 14 April 1998 – 5 August 1999
Personal details
Born	(1951-03-01) 1 March 1951 Bakhtiarpur, Bihar, India
Political party	JDU
Spouse(s)	Manju Kumari Sinha
Children	1
Alma mater	Bihar College of Engineering
Profession	Politician
Nickname(s)	Sushasan Babu (Mr. Good Governance)[1] Vikash Purush (Development Man)[2][3] Mr. Clean[4][5] Lord Turnaround[6]

Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician who has been the Chief Minister of Bihar, a state in eastern India, since 2017. Previously he served as the Chief Minister of Bihar from 2005 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2017; he also served as a minister in the Union Government of India.^[7] He belongs to the Janata Dal (United) political party. He endeared himself to Biharis, used to low expectations from previous regimes, when as Chief Minister, his socialist policies bore dividends in appointing more than 100,000 school teachers, ensuring that doctors worked in primary health centers, electrification of villages,^[8] paving of roads, cutting female illiteracy by half, turning around a lawless state by cracking down on criminals and doubling the income of the average Bihari.^[9] The cumulative growth rate of GDP of Bihar during his tenure as CM is highest as compared to other states for that period.

On 17 May 2014 he resigned, owning 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 political crisis in Bihar^[10] and won the state elections of November 2015. He was elected as the national president of his party on 10 April 2016. In the upcoming election of 2019 many politicians including Lalu Yadav, Tejaswi Yadav and others had proposed him for the Prime Ministerial post in India^[11][12][13] although he has denied such aspirations. He resigned again on 26 July 2017 as Chief Minister of Bihar over differences with the coalition partner RJD due to naming of Tejaswi Yadav, the deputy CM and Lalu's son in an FIR by the CBI.^[14][15] Hours later, he joined the NDA coalition which had thus far been the opposition, and secured a majority in the assembly, taking the Chief Ministership once again on the very next day.

Early life

Nitish Kumar was born in Harnaut (Kalyan Bigaha हिन्दी: कल्याण बिगहा), Nalanda district of Bihar in a Kurmi family to Kabiraj Ram Lakhan Singh and Parmeshwari Devi.^[16] His father was a freedom fighter^[17] and was close to the great Gandhian Bihar Vibhuti Anugrah Narayan Singh, one of the founders of modern Bihar. His father, who was also an Ayurvedic Vaidyaraj.

He got a degree in mechanical^[18] engineering^[19] from Bihar College of Engineering, (now NIT Patna) in 1972.^[20][21] He joined the Bihar State Electricity Board, half-heartedly, and later moved into politics.^[22]

Political career

Nitish Kumar belongs to a socialist class of politicians. He learnt the lessons of politics under the^[23] tutelage of stalwarts Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, S. N. Sinha, Karpuri Thakur and V. P. Singh.^[24]

Nitish Kumar participated in Jayaprakash Narayan's movement^[25] between 1974 and 1977, and was close to Satyendra Narayan Singh, a prominent leader of the time.

Union Minister

Nitish Kumar 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, taking the responsibility of the disaster as Minister of Railways. However, in his shoty stint as Railway Minister, he brought in widespread reforms^[26] such as internet ticket booking facility in 2002,^[27][28] 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 got elected from Nalanda but lost from his traditional constituency, Barh.^[29]

Chief Minister of Bihar

Nitish Kumar's government also initiated bicycle and meal programs – the government gave bicycles to girls who stayed in school – which saw Bihar getting huge number of girls into schools and fall in school drop out rates.^[30]

In 2010, Nitish Kumar's party swept back to power along with its allies (at that time), Bharatiya Janata Party. On 26 November 2010, Nitish Kumar took oath as a Chief Minister of Bihar. This was his second consecutive term as Chief Minister of Bihar. In a keenly fought contest, Nitish Kumar led JDU-BJP to combine won with four-fifth majority. NDA won 206 seats while RJD won 22 seats. No party there has won enough seats to represent the opposition in the state assembly, which requires at least 25 seats to become eligible to represent the main opposition party.^[31][32] 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.^[33]

Resignation

On 17 May 2014, he 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. Kumar resigned, taking the moral responsibility of his party's poor performance in the election and Jitan Ram Manjhi took over.^[34]

2015 Bihar elections

Nitish Kumar again assumed office of the Chief Minister on 22 February 2015, on the backdrop of upcoming 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election, considered to be his toughest election till date.^[35][36] Thus, Nitish Kumar's JD(U) along with RJD and Congress, formed the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) to counter the BJP in Bihar.

Nitish campaigned aggressively during the elections for the Grand Alliance, countering the allegations raised by Narendra Modi and the BJP.^[37] Finally, the Grand Alliance won the Assembly election by a huge margin of 178 seats against 58 seats of the BJP and its allies, and RJD emerged as the largest party by winning 80 seats and JD(U) came second, winning 71 seats.^[38][39] He was sworn in as Chief Minister on 20 November 2015 for a record fifth time and Lalu Yadav's youngest son Tejashwi Yadav became the fourth Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar. On 26 July 2017, he resigned as Chief Minister of Bihar, citing resistance in working as a CM amid corruption charges at Deputy CM.He joined the principle opposition (NDA) and came back to power within a few hours.^[40]

The Mahagathbandhan Breakup

Following the corruption charges against Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy Chief Minister, Nitish asked Yadav to resign from the cabinet which was refused by RJD. In order to protect his clean image and zero tolerance towards corruption, Nitish Kumar resigned on July 26, 2017, ending the so-called 'Grand Alliance'.^[41][42][43]

Personal life

On 22 February 1973, Nitish Kumar married Manju Kumari Sinha, a teacher by profession. They have a son, Nishant (born 20 July 1975), who is a graduate in engineering from BIT-Mesra.^[44][45][46] Manju Sinha died in 2007 at the age of 53. Nitish's nickname is Munna.^[47][48]

Biographies

• Sankarshan Thakur authored a book based on his life titled Single Man: The Life and Times of Nitish Kumar of Bihar.^{[49][50][51][52]}
• Arun Sinha has authored a book titled Nitish Kumar and The Rise of Bihar.^{[53][54][55][56]}

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^[57]
• Ranked 77th in prestigious Foreign Policy Magazine top 100 global thinkers 2012.^[58]
• XLRI, Jamshedpur "Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal" for Industrial & Social Peace 2011.^[59]
• "MSN Indian of the year 2010"^[60]
• NDTV Indian of the Year – Politics, 2010^[61]
• Forbes "India's Person of the Year", 2010^[62]
• CNN-IBN "Indian of the Year Award" – Politics, 2010^[63]
• NDTV Indian of the year – Politics, 2009^[64]
• Economics Times "Business reformer of the Year 2009".^[65]
• 'Polio Eradication Championship Award' 2009, by Rotary Internationals.^[66]
• CNN-IBN Great Indian of the Year – Politics, 2008^[67]
• The Best Chief Minister,^[68] according to the CNN-IBN and Hindustan Times State of the Nation Poll 2007.

Positions held

}

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nitish Kumar.

• Official Blog
• Biography on Bihar Government website

{[nitish kumar is the best chief minister of bihar]}

1. ↑ "Nitish Kumar again sworn in Bihar chief minister".