Nitish Kumar has won the floor test by 129 votes in the Bihar legislative assembly. With this, he continues to be the chief minister of Bihar for the ninth time. The opposition staged a walkout and hence the Sushasan babu bagged zero votes against him.
He took oath as the chief minister for the first time in March 2000 under the NDA alliance of the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Since then he has been in the top position of the state except for a few months when Jitan Ram Manjhi replaced him in 2014-15.
This is the fifth time that the JDU chief has switched sides. This trait of his was reflected for the first time during the 2015 assembly elections when he shocked everyone by joining hands with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), his chief opponent, and forming the government.
After corruption charges were leveled against the deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav in 2017, Kumar sought his resignation but was refused by RJD. So, he broke the grand alliance and formed the government within a few hours with the support of the NDA.
During the 2020 assembly elections, Nitish Kumar's JDU became the third biggest party as per polls but he again managed to be on the throne with the support of the BJP under NDA. RJD had secured the largest number of seats if we see the party-wise figures.
In 2022, Kumar again broke the alliance with the BJP, joined hands with Mahagathbandhan, and took oath as the CM of Bihar for the eighth term.
Now, when general elections are approaching, he has again switched to NDA and won today's floor test for his ninth term.
For the sake of remaining in power, Nitish Kumar has switched sides multiple times and is known as one of the least reliable politicians in India. After giving stern statements on his ping-pong traits, the BJP has bagged him again hoping for some magic that he may bring to the NDA in the upcoming elections.