Samrat Choudhary takes oath as Bihar gets its first BJP chief minister

Bharatiya Janata Party  leader Samrat Choudhary took the oath of office as Bihar's Chief Minister on Wednesday, a day after Nitish Kumar resigned from the post following his election to the Rajya Sabha.

Choudhary made history as the first BJP chief minister of Bihar, the only state in the Hindi heartland where the party had not held the CM position before.

Governor Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) administered the oath at a ceremony held at Lok Bhawan in Patna at 10.30 am. Along with Choudhary, JD(U)'s Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav were also sworn in as members of the council of ministers. A full cabinet expansion is expected after the assembly elections being held in five states.

Prominent figures from the National Democratic Alliance, including Nitish Kumar, Union ministers J.P. Nadda and Chirag Paswan, along with other MPs and MLAs, attended the event.

On Tuesday, Choudhary was named the leader of the BJP’s legislative party in the presence of senior leaders like party's national president Nitin Nabin and Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Choudhary's political journey began in the 1990s with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), but he joined the BJP in 2018. He was appointed the party's state president in 2023 and later became Bihar's Deputy chief minister in 2024.

His rise to the chief minister’s office signals the end of an era dominated by Nitish Kumar, who had led the state for over a decade. 

Nitish Kumar, who had taken oath as he chief minister for a record 10th time in 2025 following the NDA's historic victory in the assembly elections, chose to step down and contest the Rajya Sabha polls last month. Reports suggest that his resignation was part of an understanding between the BJP and JD(U).