Resignation in the morning and sworn in by evening; Nitish Kumar goes back to NDA, taking the oath as CM of Bihar for the 9th time

JD(U) Chief Nitish Kumar who resigned as chief minister of Bihar on Sunday morning, took oath as the chief minister of Bihar once again, for a record ninth time by Sunday evening and formed government but this time with the support of BJP. He walked out of the RJD and Congress alliance, that he had joined in August 2022, almost two years after he had formed government along with BJP in 2020 Bihar Assembly Election. Kumar made a return to the folds of NDA on Sunday, months ahead of the Lok Sabha election 2024. 

Along with Nitish Kumar, BJP's Samrat Choudhury and Vijay Sinha took oath as the two deputy chief ministers of Bihar. They apart, Dr. Prem Kumar (BJP), Vijay Kumar Choudhary (JD-U), Bijendra Prasad Yadav (JD-U), Shravan Kumar (JD-U), Santosh Kumar Suman (Hindustani Awam Morcha - HAM), and Sumit Kumar Singh (Independent), also took oath as ministers of the new cabinet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to congratulate the new government after the swearing in ceremony at the Raj. Bhavan in patna. 

"The NDA government formed in Bihar will ensure development of the state and fulfil the aspirations of the people. I congratulate Nitish Kumar on taking oath 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," wrote PM Modi on ‘X’. 

HAM(S) chief and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, chief of Lok Janshakti Party Chirag Paswan who are known to have had differences with Kumar, and BJP national president JP Nadda were present at the oath taking ceremony where crowd had raised chants of Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Jai Shree Ram.

This was the fifth time Nitish Kumar in a political flip-flop in a decade, dumping alliances and switching over to another. RJD supremo and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had thus, once called him “Paltu- Kumar”. Kumar, however after tendering his resignation on Sunday had stated reasons like no progress in INDIA alliance bloc and lack of development of the state for saying goodbye to RJD- Congress and for going back to his ‘friends turn foe and then turned friends again’- the BJP.