Nitish Kumar

Kumar was born on 1 March 1951 in Bakhtiarpur, Bihar. His father, Ram Lakhan Singh, participated in the independence movement. Kumar studied engineering at Bihar College of Engineering in Patna. The Janata Dal (United) account of his early political life places him within Bihar’s socialist tradition and records his participation in the Jayaprakash Narayan movement during the period from 1974 to 1977.

Kumar entered the Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1985 and the Lok Sabha in 1989. His subsequent national political work included organisational responsibility in Janata Dal and service in the Union government. He held the railway portfolio during 2001–2004. These parliamentary and ministerial roles preceded his longer period in Bihar government. His party’s biographical account also records his first brief chief ministerial tenure in March 2000.

Kumar returned to lead Bihar’s government in 2005. The state government’s account of this period describes programmes on public administration, infrastructure and human development, including a stated emphasis on law and order and service delivery. That account is a government description of its own priorities. His career in the state’s executive ended before Samrat Choudhary took the chief ministerial oath on 15 April 2026.

On 10 April 2026, Rajya Sabha Chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan administered the parliamentary oath to Kumar in New Delhi. The Rajya Sabha Secretariat’s release identifies him as a newly elected member representing Bihar and records that he took the oath in Hindi. His move to the Upper House marked a further parliamentary phase after his earlier service in the Lok Sabha and the Bihar government.