Nitish Kumar: The man who keeps coming back — Again, and again, and again

A widely shared joke in Bihar is that, 'Nitish Kumar Google Maps jaise hain — route change karte rehte hain, par destination hamesha kursi tak hi le jaata hai.'

When Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the tenth time, most Biharis reacted as if it was expected and as per the written script.

His longevity as the CM now has given birth to many jokes. One of them being - Elections in Bihar help to decide the Leader of Opposition, not the CM. This joke captures the sheer political acumen of the man. He has been at the top post for so long and through so many unlikely permutations that people can't imagine anyone else leading the government in the state.

An advocate practicing in Patna, says 'Nitish's political journey as a never-ending soap opera whose central character always survives the plot twists.'

Friends from early days say he never looked under-confident and that self-confidence in his abilities also gave him the steely calm required to steer the political hurricanes surrounding him later.

His supporters say that after becoming CM for the first time in 2005, he transformed Bihar’s image. Roads that could easily test the patience of even the calmest of souls became motorable within years.

Along with that, he also focused on law and order, and soon people started sharing before-and-after stories like folklore. He managed all this while running an alliance government with BJP as the main partner.

Then the country saw the sharp rise of Narendra Modi and by 2013, the alliance looked weak. Some say, Nitish Kumar took an ideological stance by breaking away from BJP to present himself as a leader against communal politics. This argument doesn't go well when one travels back in history. He did not resign in 2002 when Godhara happened. The only politician who resigned in protest at that time was Ram Vilas Paswan.

There is another theory that he did that because of his own prime ministerial ambitions. That remains the only move in his long political career which did not turn beneficial for him and his party was routed in 2014 elections by the Modi wave.

But Nitish being Nitish, did something which was unexpected and unheard of. He quit the CM chair taking the moral responsibility of the loss and made Jitan Ram Manjhi the CM of the state in 2014.

Manjhi was no Paneerselvam and tried to come out of Nitish Kumar's shadow. But 2015 Bihar Assembly Elections again established Nitish Kumar as Bihar's numero uno leader. This time he was in alliance with RJD and Congress (Mahagathbandhan). It looked like an alliance of necessity. The alliance broke in less than two years and in 2017 he came back to the NDA, and has remained there since then.

It says a lot about his importance in state politics and acceptance among voters, that despite having around 40 seats in the house of 243 in 2020 polls, BJP, which had won around 80 seats, agreed to make him CM. In the 2025 polls, Nitish Kumar's party has again got less seats than BJP but CM will be him only.

His flip-flops have made him the subject of many jokes but he has managed to remain the CM for more than 18 years now. During one of the elections, his party came up with posters saying 'Nitish Sabke hain'(Nitish belongs to everyone). That poster became a part of tea-time discussions when people used to say 'that's the problem that he belongs to everyone. He can go in any alliance.' Another widely shared joke in Bihar is that, 'Nitish Kumar Google Maps jaise hain — route change karte rehte hain, par destination hamesha kursi tak hi le jaata hai' (Nitish is like Google map, keeps changing the route but will take you to the destination eventually).

These jokes and memes keep everyone in good humour but also suggest that people seem to have found their own way to ignore his flip-flops and have decisively voted for him, again.