Bihar CM Nitish Kuma with his son Nishant Kumar (File photo)
NEW DELHI: Posters urging Nishant Kumar, son of Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar, to lead the party appeared outside the JD(U) office in Patna on Monday, days after the ruling National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) landslide win in the Bihar assembly elections. The posters, put up by a JD(U) worker named Krishna Patel, read: “Ab party ki kaman sambhalein Nishant bhai” — translating to, “Now brother Nishant should lead the party.”
Nishant, the only child of Nitish Kumar, has largely stayed out of the public eye, unlike contemporaries Tejashwi Yadav and Chirag Paswan. Yadav, Bihar’s former deputy chief minister, is the son of two former chief ministers, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi, while Paswan serves as a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and is the son of the late Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.Tejashwi Yadav was the CM candidate of the opposition alliance, his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) -led Mahagathbandhan. Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) won 19 of the 28 seats it contested as an NDA ally.In the run-up to the Bihar elections, the opposition highlighted a series of public gaffes by Nitish Kumar to cast doubt on whether he would continue as chief minister if the NDA won. During this period, Nishant repeatedly reassured the public about his father’s health. The JD(U) emerged as the second-largest party in the Bihar assembly, winning 85 seats, just behind the BJP, which secured 89. The NDA collectively won 202 of the 243 seats. Nitish Kumar was sworn in as chief minister for a 10th term, having held the post since November 2005.
