Who is the Chief Minister of Bihar now?

Samrat Chaudhary of the BJP. He succeeded Nitish Kumar, who resigned on 14 April 2026 after being elected to the Rajya Sabha. Chaudhary is the first BJP leader ever to become Chief Minister of Bihar.

What was the result of the 2025 Bihar election?

The BJP-led NDA won a landslide, taking 202 of the 243 seats, while the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan was reduced to 35. The BJP became the single largest party in the Bihar assembly for the first time, and the RJD finished third for the first time since 2010.

Why did Nitish Kumar step down as Chief Minister?

After winning the 2025 election and taking the oath for a record tenth time, Nitish Kumar was elected to the Rajya Sabha and resigned as Chief Minister on 14 April 2026, handing charge to his deputy Samrat Chaudhary of the BJP. The move marked the end of two decades of Nitish-centred politics in the state.

What happened to Tejashwi Yadav and the RJD?

Tejashwi Yadav, the Mahagathbandhan's chief ministerial face, won his Raghopur seat, but his RJD slumped to third place for the first time since 2010 as the alliance collapsed to 35 seats. Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj party failed to win a single seat.

Bihar's New Era: Samrat Chaudhary, the First BJP Chief Minister, Explained

For twenty years, one question framed every Bihar election: what will Nitish Kumar do next? He switched alliances so often that "the great survivor" became less a nickname than a job description. In 2026, that era ended, not with a defection, but with a handover. Bihar now has something it has never had in its history: a BJP chief minister.

This is the story of how the 2025 verdict, and the months that followed, remade the state's politics.

The 60-second version

The result: The NDA won 202 of 243 seats in the 2025 Bihar election; the Mahagathbandhan collapsed to 35.
A first: The BJP became the single largest party in the Bihar assembly for the first time ever.
The handover: Nitish Kumar took a record tenth oath, then moved to the Rajya Sabha and resigned as CM on 14 April 2026.
The new CM: His deputy Samrat Chaudhary became Bihar's first BJP chief minister.
The opposition: Tejashwi Yadav held Raghopur, but the RJD fell to third for the first time since 2010, and Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj won zero.

How the verdict landed

The 2025 election was not close. The NDA's 202-seat haul was one of the most lopsided results in Bihar's modern history, and the internal shift inside the alliance was just as significant. The BJP, not Nitish Kumar's JD(U), emerged as the single largest party, inverting the balance that had defined the partnership for years.

For the opposition it was a rout. The RJD, the party that had topped the 2020 contest, slid to third place for the first time since 2010. The Congress, its ally, won little. And the much-hyped entry of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj ended in a blank: not a single seat.

The handover that changed everything

Nitish Kumar's response to victory was, characteristically, a surprise. He took the oath for a tenth time, a record in Indian politics, and then, within months, accepted a move to the Rajya Sabha, resigning as chief minister on 14 April 2026.

The man who took over was his deputy, Samrat Chaudhary, a prominent backward-class leader and the BJP's chosen face. His elevation was historic: in a state the BJP had contested for decades, often as the junior partner to regional giants, it had finally captured the chief minister's chair.

Who is Samrat Chaudhary

Chaudhary rose through Bihar's churning backward-class politics and became a central figure in the BJP's state organisation, serving as deputy chief minister before his elevation. His appointment is a statement of intent: the BJP signalling that it intends to lead Bihar in its own name, not merely prop up an ally, while still relying on the social coalitions that NDA governments have built in the state.

Why it matters

Bihar has long been the laboratory of Indian social-justice politics, the home of Mandal-era mobilisation and the base from which Lalu Prasad Yadav and then Nitish Kumar shaped national debates. A BJP chief minister in Patna is therefore more than a local milestone. It marks the deepest advance yet of the party into a state where regional and caste-based forces had always set the terms.

It also reframes the opposition's challenge. With the RJD pushed to third and Nitish gone from the chief minister's office, the question of who leads Bihar's opposition, and around which social coalition, is suddenly wide open.

What each side says

The NDA and the BJP present the result as an endorsement of stability and development, and the handover as a smooth, planned transition that keeps the alliance intact while giving the BJP its due as the senior partner.

The RJD and the Mahagathbandhan argue the scale of the defeat reflected a fractured opposition vote and organisational problems rather than a collapse of their core support, and insist Tejashwi Yadav remains the natural leader of any revival.

What to watch next

JD(U)'s future without Nitish in the CM chair. Whether the party holds together now that its founder has moved upstairs is the central question of the new arrangement.
Tejashwi's rebuild. Can he pull the RJD back from third place and reassemble a winning coalition?
Samrat Chaudhary's authority. How firmly a first-time BJP CM establishes control over the state machinery will shape the next phase.
The social coalition. Whether the NDA's backward-class and Dalit outreach holds, or frays, in the absence of Nitish's personal appeal.

Bihar has entered genuinely new territory. The state that taught India the politics of social justice now has a BJP chief minister, and the long Nitish Kumar era has finally given way to something the state has never seen before.

This explainer is compiled from public reporting and election records. It reflects the situation at the time of writing and will be updated as events develop.