India, April 15 -- Nitish Kumar resigned as Bihar chief minister on Tuesday ahead of his beginning as a Rajya Sabha member, ticking one more box in a long political journey that he started as a student leader in 1974.

Over the years, Kumar exhibited sharp political acumen to emerge as the longest-serving Bihar CM, having taken oath a record 10 times. Kumar was the CM choice irrespective of who he chose to align with - a pattern set since 2013 when he first broke alliance with the BJP over announcement of Narendra Modi's name as the prime ministerial candidate; by then, he had positioned himself as the primary choice to lead the Bihar government

"He was a true socialist from his student days and talked mostly of leaders like Ram Manohar ...