Samrat Choudhary: From regional player to BJP's chosen face in Bihar

Samrat Choudhary set to become Bihar's first BJP chief minister, succeeding Nitish Kumar after a landmark electoral shift

During the campaign for the Bihar Assembly elections, at a rally on October 30, Union Home Minister Amit Shah urged the people of the Tarapur constituency, Munger, to elect Samrat Choudhary with a huge majority.

 

“Trust me, Modi ji (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) will make Samrat ji a big man,” Shah said.

 

Nearly six months later, at 11 am on Wednesday, Choudhary will take the oath of office as Bihar’s chief minister.

 

Choudhary, 57, will succeed the Janata Dal (United) leader and the longest-serving chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, who quit earlier in the day.

 

Nitish Kumar was sworn in as Rajya Sabha member last week.

 

Choudhary will also be the first chief minister of Bihar from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

 

In an unprecedented electoral verdict in November last year, the BJP emerged for the first time as the single-largest party in the Bihar Assembly.

 

Choudhary joined the BJP a mere nine years back in 2017, some time after losing the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls in Khagaria as a candidate of the Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular), or HAM(S), which was a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

 

Choudhary was then still known as Rajesh Kumar alias Rohit Kumar.

 

Choudhary’s elevation to chief ministership highlights the political nous that the BJP’s top leadership has displayed in the past decade to meld the politics of cultural nationalism with social justice in the Hindi heartland states, especially Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

 

Choudhary began his political career in 1999, when he joined the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

 

His father, Shakuni Choudhary, who left his job in the Indian Army, where he served for 15 years, to debut in electoral politics in 1980, spent time in the Congress, RJD, JD(U), Samta Party (which later merged into Nitish Kumar’s party), and HAM(S), and has been close to both Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar.

 

Parvati Devi, Samrat’s mother, is also a former legislator.

 

Samrat has also been with the JD(U).

 

In Bihar, ever since its massive defeat to the alliance led by Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad in the 2015 Assembly polls, the BJP searched within its ranks for an Other Backward Class (OBC) leader, including Tarakishor Prasad, who served as deputy chief minister in the NDA government from 2020 to 2022, and current Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai.

 

Among the OBCs, the Yadavs, which comprise 14.26 per cent of Bihar’s population, and the leading OBC caste, continue to support the RJD.

 

The Kushwahas, or Koeris, the caste to which Samrat Choudhary belongs, are the second-most significant OBC caste in Bihar (4.21 per cent), and said to be electorally significant in at least a fifth of Bihar’s 243 Assembly seats. The Kushwahas and Kurmis, the caste to which Nitish Kumar belongs, are considered kindred socioeconomic communities and known as “Luv-Kush” communities, together comprising 7 per cent of the population.

 

In Samrat Choudhary, the BJP saw an able successor from its stables to the ageing and ailing Nitish Kumar, who in the last two decades was the symbol of the counter-polarisation of the backward castes against the dominant Yadavs.

 

Over the years, Samrat Choudhary, who does not hail from the Sangh Parivar, has refashioned his image as a hardliner, and emerged an ardent critic of Nitish Kumar when the JD(U) quit the NDA to form a government with the RJD and Congress in 2022.

 

Currently deputy chief minister, Samrat Choudhary was elected leader of the NDA legislative party on Tuesday. He was a minister for agriculture in the Rabri Devi government in 1999, and has also handled the urban development portfolio.

 

After joining the BJP in 2017, he had a meteoric rise in the party, becoming state vice-president in 2018, panchayati raj minister in 2021, BJP state unit chief in March 2023, and deputy chief minister in January 2024.

 

He also represented the state in meetings of the Goods and Services Tax Council.

 

There have been allegations and demands for inquiries related to alleged discrepancies in his election affidavits regarding his age, and allegations related to a 1995 murder case.

 

Sources in the NDA said Nishant Kumar, Nitish Kumar’s 50-year-old son, resisted the proposal to appoint him deputy chief minister.