Bihar: Samrat Choudhary’s rapid rise after joining the BJP

An Other Backward Class (OBC) leader of the BJP in Bihar, where the party wants to transcend its “pro-upper caste” image, Samrat Choudhary has had a meteoric rise since he joined the outfit nearly seven years ago.

Mr. Choudhary was elected the leader of the BJP Legislature Party on Sunday, and with this elevation, he is likely to become one of the two Deputy Chief Ministers in the new NDA government, led by Nitish Kumar.

His father, Shakuni Choudhary was an army man-turned-politician who started off in the Congress, and frequently switched allegiance between arch-rivals Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U).

Mr. Samrat Choudhary was a Minister in the government headed by Rabri Devi, the RJD supremo‘s wife, and remained with the party for quite a while after it was ousted from power in 2005.

In 2014, he became part of a rebel faction and joined the JD(U) government headed by Jitan Ram Manjhi, who had taken over after Mr. Kumar had stepped down.

Three years later, he grew disenchanted with the JD(U) and joined the BJP, which recognised his potential, both as a fiery speaker and as a leader belonging to the prominent Koeri caste.

Mr. Choudhary was made a vice-president of the State unit and was later rewarded with a berth in the Legislative Council. He became a Minister in Mr. Kumar’s government after the NDA won the 2020 Assembly election.

He was named the State BJP president in March 2023, when he succeeded Lok Sabha MP Sanjay Jaiswal, drawing Rabri Devi’s snide remark “baniya se dil bhar gaya to Mahto ko bana diya“.

Known to be a vocal critic of Mr. Kumar, Mr. Choudhary had started wearing a turban after the JD(U) supremo dumped the BJP last year, vowing to take it off only after his party returned to power.

He now faces the challenging task of making peace with his former bete noire and ensuring that the ‘Luv Kush’ combine, a colloquialism for Kurmis (Mr. Kumar’s caste) and Koeris in Bihar, remains strong and boosts the BJP-led coalition’s prospects in the upcoming Lok Sabha election and beyond.

Mr. Kumar resigned as the Chief Minister of Bihar, saying “things were not working well” for him in the Mahagathbandhan and the Opposition INDIA bloc, and staked claim to form a new government with the BJP, which he had dumped less than 18 months ago.

Mr. Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, who was elected the deputy of the BJP legislature party, are likely to be Mr. Kumar’s deputy CMs in the new State government.