Nitish Kumar takes oath as Bihar CM for 10th time – who are India’s longest CMs?

For a record 10th time, Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar, just days after the NDA secured a landslide victory in the recently-concluded Assembly polls. The 74-year-old JD(U) supremo and his two deputies, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, were sworn in at the Gandhi Maidan in Patna. PM Narendra Modi, Union Ministers, Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states and other top dignitaries are attending the event. The new Bihar Cabinet is expected to include 16 ministers from the BJP and 14 from JD(U), with five to six new faces. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the people of Bihar with his signature ‘gamchha’ wave at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan. NDA returned to power in Bihar with 202 out of 243 seats in the state Assembly elections.

Nitish Kumar joins ranks at longest-serving CM

No chief minister in the country would have taken oath as many times as Bihar’s longest-serving CM Nitish Kumar, who was sworn in for a record 10th term on Thursday. At 74, the JD(U) supremo also achieved another milestone of extending his 19-year stint as CM and breaking into the national top-10 list of longest-serving heads of government.

Nitish Kumar joins the ranks of the nation’s 10 longest-serving CMs, a list dominated for decades by stalwarts such as Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim and Naveen Patnaik of Odisha.

Sikkim: Pawan Kumar Chamling (Over 25 years) December 12, 1994-May 26, 2019.

Odisha: Naveen Patnaik (Over 24 years) March 5, 2000 -June 11, 2024.

West Bengal: Jyoti Basu (Over 23 years) June 21, 1977-November 5, 2000.

Arunachal Pradesh: Gegong Apang (Over 22 years) January 18, 1980-January 19, 1999; August 3, 2003-April 9, 2007.

Mizoram: Lal Thanhawla (Over 22 years) May 5, 1984-August 21, 1986; January 24, 1989-December 3, 1998; December 11, 2008-December 15, 2018.

Himachal Pradesh: Virbhadra Singh (Over 21 years) April 8, 1983-March 5, 1990; December 3, 1993-March 24, 1998; March 6, 2003-December 30, 2007; December 25, 2012 -December 27, 2017.

Tripura: Manik Sarkar (Over 19 years) March 11, 1998-March 9, 2018

Nitish Kumar (About 19 years) March 3, 2000, to March 11, 2000; November 24, 2005, to May 20, 2014, and February 22, 2015, to November 19, 2025.

Tamil Nadu: M Karunanidhi (Over 18 years) February 10, 1969-January 31, 1976; January 27, 1989-January 30, 1991; May 13, 1996-May 14, 2001; May 13, 2006-May 16, 2011.

Punjab: Parkash Singh Badal (Over 18 years) March 27, 1970-June 14, 1971; June 20, 1977-February 17, 1980; February 12, 1997-February 26, 2002; March 1, 2007-March 16, 2017.