Nitish Raj Comes To An End In Bihar - Successes, Failures And Verdict
Nitish's resignation from the post of the chief minister virtually marks the end of his participation in active politics for more than half a century
By Dev Raj
Published : April 14, 2026 at 9:12 PM IST
|Updated : April 14, 2026 at 9:40 PM IST
Patna: As chief minister Nitish Kumar handed over his resignation to governor Lieutenant General (Retired) Syed Ata Hasnain on sultry Tuesday afternoon, it marked the end of an epoch in Bihar politics. He spent two decades at the helm, which gave him the distinction of being the longest-serving chief minister of the eastern state.
Though Nitish will now serve as a Rajya Sabha member (he took oath in the Upper House of the Parliament on April 10), his resignation from the post of the chief minister virtually marks the end of his participation in active politics for more than half a century.
The 75-year-old ‘Munna’ (Nitish’s nickname, meaning a little kid) has been a career politician, prepared and shaped in the socialist cauldron stirred by freedom fighter Jayaprakash Narayan.
Born to ayurvedic doctor Ram Lakhan Singh and Parmeshwari Devi on March 1, 1951, at a small town, Bakhtiyarpur in Patna district, he completed his schooling there and went on to graduate in electrical engineering from the Bihar College of Engineering (now National Institute of Technology, Patna) in 1972. His native place is Kalyanbigha village in Nalanda district.
Nitish got a taste of politics during his college days. Those were the days Jayaprakash Narayan believed that politically aware students and youths could change the society, government and expedite the development of the country.
He participated in the students’ movement and the call for Total Revolution given by Narayan in the wake of the Emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was arrested and jailed, only to come out as a seasoned politician. His other notable associates at that time were Lalu Prasad (now Rashtriya Janata Dal president) and Sushil Kumar Modi (later Bharatiya Janata Party leader, died 2024).
Always aligned with parties with a socialist leaning, Nitish went on to become an MLA from Harnaut constituency in Nalanda district in 1985 after years of effort, and never looked back. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989 and became minister of state (MoS) for agriculture in the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s government in 1990, and moved to politics at the Centre.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha six times between 1990 and 2004, gravitated towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), became a founder member of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and had various stints as a cabinet minister in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet.
During the period, the distance between him and his friend, the then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, increased, and he went on to form the Samata Party under the patronage of socialist leader George Fernandes. It later split to form the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) – the party which he (Nitish) at present leads as its national president.
Despite holding important ministries like the railways, agriculture, and surface transport at the Centre, Nitish’s focus remained on Bihar. He became the chief minister of the state for a week in March 2000, but resigned as he did not have enough support to pass the floor test.
Nitish kept up the efforts and led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a resounding victory over Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in 2005 to become the chief minister – post he held till Tuesday, with an interregnum of nine months in 2014 – 15, when he had quit owing responsibility of his party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls and anointed Jitan Ram Manjhi (now Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular leader and Union minister) to take his place.
The ‘social engineering’ to power
The 1990 to 2005 reign of Lalu and his wife Rabri Devi, who belonged to the Yadav caste that accounts for over 14 per cent of the population of the state, had made other castes feel left out of governance. They also bore the brunt of rampant crime and law and order problems.
Nitish successfully tapped the prevalent anguish and frustration to create a coalition of various non-Yadav castes, focusing more on marginalised groups, including the extremely backward classes (EBCs), Dalits, Mahadalits, women, and Pasmanda Muslims (Muslims belonging to the backward classes) in the elections. The general category castes also threw their lot with him due to his anti-RJD stand.
This formula or equation of castes is known as ‘social engineering’. It expanded the JD(U) social and voter base, gave it an expression of being an ‘inclusive party’, and helped it win state elections one after the other.
Improvement in law and order
Bihar had earned the epithet of ‘badlands’ during the RJD regime due to various brazen crimes that shook up the psyche of not only the people of the state, but of the entire country. It also attracted the infamous sobriquet of ‘jungle raj’ (law of the jungle or lawlessness).
Nitish set out to address it as a priority after becoming the chief minister in 2005. The policing was strengthened, criminals were taken to task, and the situation improved within a matter of a few months.
“I remember the day Nitish came to power in November 2005. I was at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for some teaching-related work and felt as if I had been liberated or come out of prison. Those days I used to live at the Patna University campus, and had been robbed twice on the Ashok Rajpath – the road along which it is located. The common people felt the same. Law and order is the basics of governance, and Nitish improved it. The entire country was excited about it back then,” social activist and former Patna University professor N.K. Choudhary told ETV Bharat.
During the period 2005 to 2010, the gangsters and anti-social elements were either jailed or fled the state.
Infrastructure Development
Nitish’s rule is marked by a quantum leap in infrastructure that lay in shambles in the state. He focused on roads and bridges, bringing about a turnaround in connectivity to faraway corners of the state. Government schools and hospitals were constructed, and electricity supply lines and drinking water started reaching everywhere.
“There was a time when I had to spend the same amount of time in travelling from Delhi to Patna and from Patna to my village Jalsain in Madhubani district. The roads are much better now and connect every village. I am in my village right now, and electricity is present. All these improvements came during Nitish’s rule. He understood the importance of infrastructure,” Development Research Institute (DRI) director and former director of A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies (ANSISS) D.M. Diwakar told ETV Bharat.
Nitish also focused on state-of-the-art landmarks like the Bihar Museum, Samrat Ashok Convention Centre, International Convention Centre at Rajgir, Earthquake-resistant Sardar Patel Bhavan that serves as the Bihar Police headquarters, the Ganga Driveway, and Bapu Tower that showcases the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi.
Welfare works
As a chief minister, Nitish brought the concept of the ‘welfare state’ to Bihar by initiating various schemes targeting the common people and specific groups among the masses.
Paying attention to ‘women empowerment’, he provided 50 per cent reservation to them in local self-governance bodies. Bihar was the first state to do so at that time. He followed it up with 35 per cent horizontal reservation for women in state government jobs.
To empower women in rural areas, he brought the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project with a loan from the World Bank. Now known as the Jeevika Project, employment-oriented self-help groups (SHGs) of women were established. They were given training and loans as seed capital to start ventures. At present, there are over 11 lakh SHGs with more than 1.4 crore members across the state. The project proved to be a runaway success and the Centre also adopted it for the entire country.
Nitish focused on increasing the enrolment of children, especially girls, in schools via providing school uniforms, bicycles, sanitary napkins and scholarships.
“Nitish also imposed prohibition for the welfare of women. Though it did not succeed due to various reasons, it ensured that the hooliganism on the street corners in the evenings across the state stopped. He also implemented roadmaps for agricultural development. In fact, Bihar was the first state in the country to have such a roadmap for agriculture,” Diwakar said.
Failures across the decades
While Nitish started with the right earnest, the democratic set-up of governance fell prey to bureaucracy due to his over-reliance on it to implement his developmental vision. It also gave way to a sharp rise in corruption in government offices and work.
“It was unfortunate that governance changed its form from democratic to bureaucratic. The Council of Ministers was replaced by a caucus of bureaucrats led by a super bureaucrat in the form of the chief minister. The bureaucrats lacked accountability, became out of control, and started taking the state and its people for a ride. Corruption became widespread because of this,” Chaudhary said.
Talking about the failures, Diwakar pointed out that the Nitish government abolished the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act in 2006, making Bihar the first state in the country to eliminate Bazar Samitis or the ‘mandi’ system for agricultural produce.
“It led to devastation in the farm sector in a state where 97 per cent of farmers have small or marginal land holdings. The dismantling of Bazar Samitis forced them to sell the produce at lower prices than the MSP (minimum support price) to the middlemen,” Diwakar said.
Diwakar pointed out that the scrapping of the University Service Commission in 2007 led to the non-recruitment of college and university teachers. It led to a scarcity that teaching in higher education suffered, and Nitish was forced to bring it back in 2017.
Similarly, he did not implement the Muchkund Dubey Committee report on a common school system and the D Bandyopadhyay Committee report on extensive land reforms, and both the sectors, as well as the society, suffered.
He also failed in improving the industrial sector despite much effort and international conferences of entrepreneurs. The investments did not materialise, and the state remains a stagnant agriculture-based economy.
In politics, his machinations, capitulations and somersaults from one alliance to another and then back made him lose credibility and trustworthiness. He took the oath as a chief minister 10 times and resigned six times, thereby setting a dubious record.
Many people also criticise him for falling victim to dynastic politics by trying to push his son Nishat Kumar into politics despite his obvious objections and refusals.
Still the best despite failures
However, experts still rate him as the best chief minister with a broad vision of development that Bihar has ever had.
“Overall, Nitish’s rule was historic. He will be remembered for restoring the ideals of democratic and republican governance. He will be remembered as the maker of modern-day Bihar in the post-Independence era,” Chaudhary said.
BJP leader Samrat Chaudhary is poised to succeed him as the chief minister, but will have very large shoes to fill.
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