Nitish's past detractors made deputies in new realignment

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will now have two of his loudest detractors-Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha as his deputies, an equation which political observers said might have been formulated by the BJP as an attempt to keep the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) chief, who has a history of breaking alliances, in check.

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Choudhary, the chief of the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was on Sunday elected the leader of the legislature party and later designated as the state's deputy chief minister. A member of the Bihar legislative council, Choudhary has served as a minister in the RJD, JD(U) and NDA governments.

In 2014, he parted ways with the RJD and joined the JD(U) government headed by Jitan Ram Manjhi. Three years later, he left the JD(U) and joined the BJP. He was named the vice-president of the state unit in 2018 and became a minister in the chief minister Nitish government after the NDA won the 2020 assembly polls.

Choudhary started sporting a saffron turban in 2022 after Nitish left the NDA and again joined hands with the RJD and Congress, saying that he will take it off after "dethroning" Nitish.

"People of Bihar are fed up with Nitish Kumar and he has become a non-entity in Bihar's politics. The way he has cheated the people of Bihar, voters will teach him a lesson," he said in March 2023 after he was named as the BJP's state chief.

An OBC leader from the Koeri community, Choudhary has also accused Nitish of "plundering" the state for the last 18 years and had called him a "tired CM".

"Nitish Kumar has been plundering the state for the past 18 years. Previously, RJD too had looted the state for 15 years." Choudhary had said at a function in Patna in May last year.