Chief minister Nitish Kumar turned 74 on Saturday amid congratulatory messages from the top NDA leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Nitish celebrated the occasion by distributing appointment letters to 59,028 special teachers (those who passed a test to assess their teaching capability).
“It is necessary that you all happily discharge your duty in a better manner. I want you all to focus on teaching and the all-round development of schoolchildren. The panchayats and urban local bodies in the state appointed 3.68 lakh contractual teachers since 2006-07, while we took steps to improve education," Nitish said.
"The Bihar Public Service Commission started recruiting government teachers for schools through competitive exam since 2023. We thought of giving an opportunity to the contractual teachers also to pass an exam and become government teachers. We are giving them five attempts to pass the exam. So far, 2.54 lakh such teachers have qualified in two attempts,” the chief minister added.
Nitish stressed the need to work for the uplift of every section of society and pointed out that he had been doing so ever since assuming charge as the chief minister of the state in 2005.
Nitish's supporters distributed sweets and fruits among the people and prayed for his wellbeing. Rural works department minister Ashok Choudhary offered a 75kg laddoo at a temple in the state capital and released 75 pigeons to mark the chief minister entering his 75th year.
“We released the pigeons to mark the liberation of the people of Bihar from the ‘jungle raj’ (lawlessness or rule of the jungle) with the advent of Nitish in 2005 as the chief minister. He has led the state to development, and it will develop further in the next five years in his leadership,” Ashok said.
Asked when Nitish’s son Nishant Kumar would enter politics, Ashok replied: “Whenever he (Nishant) would want to.”
It fuelled speculations that Nishant could be entering politics soon. He has been appealing to the people to vote for his father, and demanding that the NDA declare him the chief ministerial candidate for the Assembly elections expected to be held towards the end of this year.