Vijay Chaudhary left the Congress and joined the JD(U) in 2008 and is considered close to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Vijay Chaudhary, senior Janata Dal (United) legislator and a close confidante of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was today unanimously elected as the Speaker of Bihar Assembly.
Mr Chaudhary's name was proposed and seconded by members of all the parties, including JD(U), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, besides opposition BJP, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). But, three members of CPI-ML remained absent from the House during election of the Speaker of the 16th Bihar Legislative Assembly.
Later, state Parliamentary Affairs minister Shrawan Kumar said that though members of CPI-ML were not present in the House during election of the Speaker, they had conveyed their verbal consent in the name of Mr Chaudhary.
The 58-year-old is a fifth term legislator from Sarairanjan constituency in Samastipur district. He started his legislative career as Congress legislator in 1982 but later shifted to JD(U) and was number two minister in the previous Nitish Kumar government.
Election of the new Speaker was the first agenda taken by the House today.
Protem Speaker Sadanand Singh called the name of 11 proposers and as many seconders in favour of Mr Chaudhary and later put the proposal to voice vote which got a big yes.
Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav, Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar, former Chief Minister and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi, Congress state chief and minister Ashok Choudhary, JD(U) leaders Shyam Rajak, Ranju Geeta and BJP's Sanjay Sarawgi were among 11 proposers to Chaudhary's candidature.
Later, the Protem Speaker asked the chief minister and Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar to escort Mr Chaudhary to the chair of the Speaker which they did.
Son of a freedom fighter and Congress legislator Jagdish Prasad Chaudhary, Vijay Chaudhary was born on January 8, 1957. He is an MA in History from Patna University. He was a bank probationer at Trivandrum which he left after his father's death and plunged into politics by winning the byelection from Sarairanjan in 1982 as Congress candidate.
Mr Chaudhary served as General Secretary of state Congress and a member of All India Congress Committee (AICC) from 2000 to 2005.
Later, due to closeness with Nitish Kumar he left Congress and joined JD(U) and was made its General Secretary and main spokesman in 2008. He also served as JD(U) state chief and later was inducted in state cabinet in 2010.