PatnaDecember 1, 2025 07:42 PM IST
First published on: Dec 1, 2025 at 07:42 PM IST
Putting speculation to rest about NDA allies BJP and JD(U) vying for political supremacy over legislative affairs, nine-time BJP MLA from Gaya Town on Monday became the only one to file his nomination for the post of Speaker, paving way for his unanimous election.
“I thank the NDA leadership for considering me for the onerous job. I will try to take both the Treasury Benches as well as the Opposition into confidence. There were other contenders for the position and I would call it (my selection) the beauty of democracy. I will use my 35-year legislative experience to try and be equal to the task,” Prem Kumar told reporters.
A seemingly obvious choice of the BJP due to his seniority, 70-year-old Prem Kumar has been a part of the party’s once-famous quartet – the late Sushil Kumar Modi, former Assembly Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav and ex-Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey – to emerge from the 1974 JP Movement.
He is also the only one among the four to still be active politically. Modi, who served as Bihar Deputy CM for 13 years, passed away last year, Yadav did not contest the recent Assembly polls after a long political career where he served as minister several times before being elected Speaker of the last Assembly while Choubey has been dormant since being denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Buxar in last year’s Lok Sabha polls.
“Prem Kumar is the last of the leaders from the Sushil Modi generation as his contemporaries are not active anymore. Bestowing the Speaker’s post on him is only a befitting tribute to a senior leader. His appointment also takes care of the social balance as he belongs to the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC),” a senior BJP leader said.
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A PhD in History who hails from the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) Chandravanshi community, Prem Kumar was first elected as MLA in 1990 from Gaya Town, a seat he has retained since. He has served as a minister since 2005, holding key portfolios like Public Health Engineering, Urban Development, Agriculture, and Environment and Forests.
Prem Kumar’s close associates describe him as a “first generation politician from his family who is easily accessible to his voters”. “He comes from a very humble background. Three years before becoming an MLA, Prem Kumar started a pharmaceutical business along with four of his friends. He gave up his stake in the business after he became an MLA. His brother had an electrical goods shop in Gaya for sometime while his son Prem Sagar is an active BJP member,” Shatrughan Bhadani, one of his close aides told The Indian Express.
Prem Kumar also served as the Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2017, when Nitish Kumar led the Mahagathbandhan government before jumping ship to the NDA.
In the recent elections, Prem Kumar defeated his rarest rival Onkar Nath of the Congress by over 11,000 votes.
With his election, Prem Kumar becomes one of only three leaders from the state, including Yadav and Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha, to serve as the Leader of the Opposition and Speaker.