Nitish Kumar concluded his two-decade tenure as Bihar's Chief Minister this week, as he prepares to move to the Rajya Sabha. The decision to stand down from the state's top office, after leading his Janata Dal United to another election victory in December 2025, is noteworthy on several levels, one of which is Bihar's first chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party. The most significant aspect, however, is that this is Nitish Kumar's Frank Sinatra moment.
In December 1968, Sinatra, one of the world's most renowned singers, recorded his version of a French song released the previous year. It has now become a classic, a cross-generational tribute to the spirit of living life on one's own terms, through highs and lows.

That, in a nutshell, has been Nitish Kumar's tenure as Bihar Chief Minister, despite the fact that he has switched between the BJP and Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal on several occasions.
At times feted and at times ridiculed - particularly over claims of cognitive decline in recent months, including an unfortunate incident in December where he removed a woman's hijab - the 75-year-old has left 1, Aney Marg in Patna on his terms, as a 10-time Chief Minister with an enviable election win-loss record who gave the state'sushasan' and 'nishedh'.From a policy standpoint, these are among his most crucial actions because they allowed him to build a political identity that won hearts across the state and carried him for over 20 years, winning him and JDU election after election.

Sushasan babu
Nitish Kumar waited 15 years to rule the Bihar government on his own terms.
The JDU rebounded from a hung house in the February 2005 election, winning 88 seats in the November re-election.
Nitish Kumar, a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, took his second oath as Chief Minister; the first was for seven days five years ago.At the time, the state machinery had crumbled into 'jungle raj' after six years of instability, including three chief ministers and eight months of President's Rule, stripped it of any authority.His answer was to revamp the judicial and law enforcement systems, cracking down on criminal elements and ensuring public safety, notably the ability to travel at night.
And thus was born'sushasan babu', an epithet reinforced by an infrastructure push that saw roads completed and power supply stabilised.The EBC's 'Mahadalits' plan
Nitish Kumar understood early on that Lalu Yadav had an advantage over him: caste support. The Yadav community, which accounts for almost 15% of the population, is one of the largest OBC subgroups and a key voter base for Lalu Yadav and the RJD.
He also noticed that the Dalit community's most marginalised members were being disregarded.
So Nitish pulled off a masterstroke of social engineering: he formed sub-quotas inside the OBCs and Dalit groupings, dubbing them 'Ati Pichhda' and'mahadalits' and showering them with quotas and welfare programs.
The numbers returned were startling.Between them, they accounted for over 46% of the population, and they became strongly devoted to Nitish Kumar, allowing him to trump the Yadav vote and win elections when he shouldn't have been able to, such as the 2020 election.
He also implemented policies such as free bicycles and school uniforms for girls, which earned him widespread praise and helped him return to power in 2010, when the JDU-BJP coalition won a resounding victory in the assembly election.
Women's Choice
Nitish's primary vote bank was threefold: the 'Ati Pichhda', the'mahadalit', and women, who have voted for him since 2005 and have become as important to his political strategy as the first two.This was due to women's self-empowerment efforts and the implementation of prohibition, or nishedh.From an urban revenue standpoint, prohibiting spirits sales means losing large amounts of excise tax. For background, Uttar Pradesh earned more than Rs 52,000 crore from spirits sales in FY24/25.
That is a significant sum of money to lose, especially for a developing country, but it was a political masterstroke.Women from low-income households who had experienced domestic violence due to alcoholic spouses backed the effort, and their support was reflected in the outcomes. Importantly, this base cut across castes and groups, with women frequently secretly ignoring 'orders' from men in their homes to vote for candidate X and instead voting for the JDU.

In 2020, Nitish Kumar won again and returned as Chief Minister. But then, in August 2022, he resigned, leaving the NDA and rejoining the Mahagathbandhan, forging a new coalition.
The focus, however, is on each camp's willingness to renegotiate and allow the JDU into its fold, rather than the flip-flopping. The emphasis is also, as Sinatra sang, on 'doing it my way'.