Do we like Nitish Kumar?
Our score: 5 out of 10. A real record for women and development sits beside a hijab-pulling stoush, a dud 2022 remark on same-sex couples and a party that backed the Waqf bill.
Nitish Kumar has been Bihar chief minister a record ten times since 2005, with a short break when Jitan Ram Manjhi held the job after the JD(U)'s 2014 Lok Sabha setback. When he filed for the Rajya Sabha in March 2026, Amit Shah praised him for freeing Bihar from the “clutches of Jungle Raj”. That is the story his supporters tell, and it is a big part of why he lasted.
The other story is the flip-flopping. He quit the BJP alliance in 2013 over Narendra Modi, won in 2015 with the RJD and Congress, went back to the BJP in 2017, left again in 2022, and rejoined the BJP-led NDA in January 2024. The press ended up calling him “Paltu Ram”, and commentators said the switches dent his credibility.
The bit that cut through this year, and in December 2025, was the Patna video. At a government event, Kumar pointed at a Muslim woman doctor's hijab as she collected her appointment letter and pulled it down, while people on stage laughed. Congress called for his resignation and Amnesty International India's head called it an assault on her dignity. The JD(U) said only that he had supported minorities, and neither report we read carried a response from him. Reports said the doctor then refused the job, and Union minister Giriraj Singh defended Kumar, saying he did it as a guardian.
On the harm check, the record is patchy rather than damning. In 2022, opening a girls' hostel, he said dowry was useless and then asked what would happen to childbirth if a man married another man, which one outlet called behind the times on LGBTQ+ rights. In 2025, Muslim leaders said his silence on the Waqf bill hurt them, while a JD(U) Union minister backed it and Owaisi said Muslims would not forgive him. We found no campaign against trans people from him.
The good stuff is real. He brought in 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats in 2006 and a 35 per cent quota in state government jobs in 2013. In 2025 about 1.2 crore women got Rs 10,000 each under a self-employment scheme, and women's turnout beat men's in 37 of 38 districts. The liquor ban he brought in has been criticised on enforcement, though many women reportedly credit him for it.
As for now, he has handed Bihar's top job to the BJP's side of the alliance and gone to Delhi, with the opposition saying he was pushed. Nothing we could open showed a ruling against him personally. Where you land on that depends on whether you read it as a dignified exit or the end of his run.