Samrat Choudhary sworn in as Bihar CM, first from BJP to hold post

BJP leader Samrat Choudhary was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar on Wednesday, the first from the saffron party to hold the post. Governor Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) administered the oath of office and secrecy to Choudhry as chief minister and to JD(U)'s Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav as members of the Council of Ministers at the Lok Bhawan here. Top leaders of the ruling NDA in Bihar, which comprises the BJP, JD(U) and three other parties, attended the ceremony. They included Union Ministers J P Nadda and Chirag Paswan, Nitish Kumar, and all NDA MLAs. Nitish Kumar, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, relinquished the chief minister's post on Tuesday, dissolving his cabinet in which Choudhary was a deputy chief minister and held the crucial home portfolio. Choudhary, who joined the BJP in 2017, was named the legislative party leader on Tuesday in the presence of top functionaries like BJP chief Nitin Nabin and Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whom the parliamentary board had named as "central observer" for the transition.