Samrat Choudhary as the Chief Minister The history-making moment of the political landscape in Bihar On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, Samrat Choudhary was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar. It is the first in the history of the Indian state for somebody from BJP to occupy the highest office in the state.
Choudhary takes over from the longest-serving CM of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, who resigned earlier this week following his election to the Rajya Sabha, bringing to an end his long rule of the state’s ruling branch.
A New Power Equation
Although the BJP now lead, alliance with the Janata Dal (United) remains in place under a power-sharing scheme. Reflecting this balance, two seasoned JDU leaders, Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Vijay Kumar Choudhary, were sworn in as Deputy Chief Ministers. This has helped maintain continuity of the NDA party coalition while welcoming the BJP as the single largest party with a 243-member Bihar Assembly and its growing influence.
Governor Syed Ata Hasnain took the oath of office to the new cabinet in a ceremony given by top NDA leadership and Union Ministers. The Rise of Samrat Choudhary. Choudhary’s rise has been celebrated as a masterstroke in social engineering. The 57-year-old leader hails from the Koeri (Kushwaha) community, a key OBC voting bloc, and has experienced a meteoric rise.
As a deputy CM and Home Minister in the previous cabinet, he has become a high-profile critic of the opposition and a key strategist for BJP expansion in the Hindi heartland. At the ceremony, Choudhary thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pledged to steer Bihar on the road to the vision of "Viksit Bihar 2047," which is based on responsible governance and infrastructure development.
End of the Nitish Kumar Era
The change comes on the heels of the voluntary departure of Nitish Kumar, who was known as “Sushasan Babu” for emphasizing development. Kumar’s move to the Rajya Sabha represents a transition from a state administrator to a national legislature. Even when the power shifted hands there, Kumar made Choudhary himself a name at the party meeting in NDA which was an obvious "passing of the torch" intended for stability in the state till the next election.
