Chief Ministers of Bihar: Complete List, Tenure and Party

Samrat Choudhary is the Chief Minister of Bihar. He was sworn in on 15 April 2026, the day after Nitish Kumar resigned to move to the Rajya Sabha, and he is the first Bharatiya Janata Party leader ever to hold the post in Bihar. Twenty-four people have been Chief Minister since 1947, and because several of them returned again and again, those twenty-four individuals account for 34 separate spells in office plus eight stretches of President’s Rule.

Bihar is the hardest of the big-state lists to get right. Bhola Paswan Shastri, Jagannath Mishra and Rabri Devi each served three times, Karpoori Thakur and Lalu Prasad Yadav twice, and Nitish Kumar took the oath on ten separate occasions across three spells. This page keeps individuals and terms apart, gives exact dates, and puts every President’s Rule spell in its own row.

How the Office Works in Bihar

Article 164 of the Constitution says the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor, and other ministers on the Chief Minister’s advice. In practice the Governor’s choice is settled by arithmetic: whoever can command a majority in the Legislative Assembly gets the job. The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to that assembly, so there is no fixed term — which is why so many Bihar tenures below end in months rather than years.

The assembly has 243 seats and a normal five-year term. Bihar also has a second chamber, the 75-member Legislative Council, and a Chief Minister may sit in either House; Nitish Kumar ran the state as an MLC for most of his time in office. Anyone appointed while a member of neither House must be elected to one within six months.

Article 356 allows President’s Rule when no government can be formed or sustained. The Council of Ministers stands dissolved and the office lies vacant while the Governor administers the state. Bihar has been through this eight times, for about 1,001 days in all.

Complete List of Chief Ministers of Bihar

The list starts on 15 August 1947 with Sri Krishna Sinha, also written as Shri Krishna Singh and known as Shri Babu. He had already led Bihar as Premier under the Government of India Act, 1935 — from 1937 to 1939 and again from March 1946 — and carried straight on when the title changed at independence.

One boundary matters for the older rows: on 15 November 2000 the Bihar Reorganisation Act carved Jharkhand out of southern Bihar. Rabri Devi was Chief Minister that day, and the assembly shrank from 324 seats to 243. Everyone before that date governed a much larger Bihar, including Chota Nagpur and Santhal Pargana.

Numbers in brackets mark a return to office. Dash rows are President’s Rule.

Two clusters of instability stand out. Between January 1968 and March 1972 the state got through six governments and three spells of President’s Rule in four years. The second came around 1999 and 2005, when hung verdicts left Bihar under Governor’s administration for nearly nine months in 2005 alone.

Published lists differ on a couple of the older handovers. The Binodanand Jha to Krishna Ballabh Sahay transition in October 1963 is dated to 2 October in some records and 15 October in others, and Bhola Paswan Shastri is filed under Loktantrik Congress in most listings but under the Congress in a few. The dates here follow the more commonly cited record.

Longest-Serving and Most Notable Chief Ministers

Nitish Kumar is the longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar by total time in office: 19 years and 237 days, or 7,177 days, across three spells and ten swearings-in between March 2000 and April 2026. His party changed sides more than once in that run — out of the NDA in 2013, back in 2017, out again in 2022, back in 2024 — but the chair did not change hands.

Sri Krishna Sinha holds the longest unbroken stretch: 13 years and 169 days, from 15 August 1947 to his death on 31 January 1961. Count his years as Premier of Bihar before independence and his total leadership comes to about 17 years, which is why some compilations rank him above Nitish Kumar and others below. Both figures are defensible; they measure different things.

After those two, total time in office runs Rabri Devi (7 years, 192 days over three terms), Lalu Prasad Yadav (7 years, 130 days over two) and Jagannath Mishra (about 5 years, 180 days over three).

Four tenures shaped the state more than the rest:

• Sri Krishna Sinha (1947-61) abolished zamindari in Bihar, among the first states to do it, and built the early industrial base at Barauni, Sindri and Bokaro.
• Karpoori Thakur (1970-71, 1977-79) introduced backward-class reservation in state jobs in 1978, resetting Bihar’s politics for a generation. He received the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 2024.
• Lalu Prasad Yadav (1990-97) built a social coalition that ended Congress dominance for good and kept his family in power, through Rabri Devi, until 2005.
• Nitish Kumar (2005-2026, with one break) is associated with the road-building and law-and-order push after 2005, and with reserving half the panchayat seats for women.

Rabri Devi remains the only woman to have been Chief Minister of Bihar, sworn in on 25 July 1997 when Lalu Prasad Yadav stepped down.

How Power Has Shifted: Party Trends in Bihar

Congress ran Bihar almost without interruption from 1947 to 1967 and returned repeatedly through the 1970s and 1980s. Jagannath Mishra’s third term, which ended on 10 March 1990, was the last Congress government the state has had.

The shape is long eras with a chaotic hinge between each: Congress dominance to 1967, then socialist and Janata experiments that rarely lasted a year, Congress again, the Lalu-Rabri period from 1990, and the Nitish Kumar era from 2005.

The latest shift came in two steps. The 2025 election gave the NDA 202 of 243 seats — BJP 89, JD(U) 85 — and Nitish Kumar was sworn in for a record tenth time on 20 November 2025 at Gandhi Maidan in Patna. He announced in March 2026 that he would move to the Rajya Sabha, resigned on 14 April, and the BJP legislature party chose Samrat Choudhary, who took the oath the next day with Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav as deputies. The BJP had shared power in Bihar for two decades without holding the top job. That changed on 15 April 2026.

Records and Quick Facts

• First Chief Minister: Sri Krishna Sinha, from 15 August 1947.
• Current Chief Minister: Samrat Choudhary, since 15 April 2026, the first BJP leader to hold the post.
• Longest total tenure: Nitish Kumar, 19 years and 237 days.
• Longest unbroken tenure: Sri Krishna Sinha, 13 years and 169 days.
• Shortest tenure: Satish Prasad Singh, four days in January-February 1968. Some listings say three or five, depending on how the first and last days are counted.
• Most terms: Bhola Paswan Shastri, Jagannath Mishra and Rabri Devi, three each; Nitish Kumar took the oath ten times across three spells.
• First woman Chief Minister: Rabri Devi, in 1997, and still the only one.
• First non-Congress Chief Minister: Mahamaya Prasad Sinha, in 1967.
• Died in office: Sri Krishna Sinha, on 31 January 1961.
• President’s Rule: eight spells, totalling roughly 1,001 days.
• Individuals versus terms: 24 people, 34 separate spells in office.

For how other states have handled the same office, see the lists for Andhra Pradesh and Delhi.

FAQ

Who is the current Chief Minister of Bihar? Samrat Choudhary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, sworn in on 15 April 2026 after Nitish Kumar resigned to enter the Rajya Sabha. He represents the Tarapur assembly constituency and is the first BJP Chief Minister in the state’s history.

Who was the first Chief Minister of Bihar? Sri Krishna Sinha, from 15 August 1947 until his death on 31 January 1961. He had led the province as Premier before independence, in 1937-39 and again from 1946.

Who is the longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar? Nitish Kumar, with 19 years and 237 days in total across three spells. Sri Krishna Sinha holds the longest single unbroken stretch at 13 years and 169 days.

How many Chief Ministers has Bihar had? Twenty-four different people since 1947. Counting each fresh appointment separately gives 34 spells, along with eight periods of President’s Rule when the office lay vacant.

How is the Chief Minister of Bihar appointed? Under Article 164 the Governor appoints whoever can command a majority in the 243-member Legislative Assembly. The Council of Ministers holds office only while it retains the confidence of the House.

Practice Questions

Practice MCQs

1. Who was the first Chief Minister of Bihar? (a) Karpoori Thakur (b) Sri Krishna Sinha (c) Binodanand Jha (d) Jagannath Mishra — Answer: (b) Sri Krishna Sinha held office from 15 August 1947 until his death in January 1961.
2. Bihar was reorganised and the state of Jharkhand created in which year? (a) 1998 (b) 2000 (c) 2002 (d) 2005 — Answer: (b) Jharkhand was carved out on 15 November 2000 under the Bihar Reorganisation Act, cutting the assembly from 324 seats to 243.
3. Who is the only woman to have served as Chief Minister of Bihar? (a) Rabri Devi (b) Sushma Swaraj (c) Meira Kumar (d) Krishna Sahi — Answer: (a) Rabri Devi first took office on 25 July 1997 and served three terms.
4. How many times has President’s Rule been imposed in Bihar? (a) Four (b) Six (c) Eight (d) Ten — Answer: (c) Eight spells between 1968 and 2005, totalling roughly 1,001 days.
5. Which Chief Minister of Bihar introduced reservation for backward classes in state government jobs in 1978? (a) Lalu Prasad Yadav (b) B. P. Mandal (c) Karpoori Thakur (d) Ram Sundar Das — Answer: (c) Karpoori Thakur brought in the policy during his second term, and was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 2024.

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