Bharatiya Janata Party leader Samrat Choudhary was sworn in as Bihar chief minister on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by his predecessor Nitish Kumar. After decades of playing the number two in the NDA bloc, the BJP has finally got its own CM in the Hindi-heartland state.
Governor Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) administered the oath of office and secrecy to Choudhry and to Janata Dal (United)'s Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav as the deputy CMs at the Lok Bhawan in Patna.
Union Ministers JP Nadda and Chirag Paswan and NDA MLAs attended the event.
Kumar, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, relinquished the chief minister's post on Tuesday, dissolving his cabinet in which Choudhary was a deputy chief minister and held the crucial home portfolio. Under his leadership, the alliance returned to power with a thumping majority in the Assembly elections last year.
Samrat Choudhary joined the BJP in 2017 after a long stint in the Lalu Yadav family-led Rashtriya Janata Dal. The BJP named him legislative party leader on Tuesday in the presence of top functionaries like BJP chief Nitin Nabin and Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whom the parliamentary board had named as 'central observer' for the transition.
After taking oath as deputy CM in the new BJP-led NDA government in Bihar, JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Choudhary said, "I express gratitude towards Nitish Kumar. Getting this responsibility is the result of the trust he has in me. The new government of Bihar will work in the path shown by Nitish Kumar. His way of working was incredible, and we are following in his path. The new CM has also said that we will take forward the schemes which were introduced by Nitish Kumar."
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