Samata Party formed an alliance with the Bharatiya Janta Party and won eight seats, six of which were in Bihar and one in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. Before the election, the party was primarily rooted only in Bihar. In the 1998 general elections, again in alliance with Bharatiya Janta Party, it won twelve seats, ten from Bihar and two from Uttar Pradesh.

In March 2000, Nitish Kumar was elected leader of the NDA for the Chief Minister of Bihar post. On 3 March, he was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar for the first time at the behest of the Vajpayee Government in the centre. NDA and allies had 151 MLAs whereas Lalu Prasad Yadav had 159 MLAs in the 324-member house. Both alliances were less than the majority mark, 163. Nithish resigned because he could not prove his numbers in the house.[7][8]

Radhabinod Koijam became the second chief minister of the Samata Party when he was sworn in as Chief Minister of Manipur on 15 February 2001.[9] The government was, however, short-lived. The coalition he was leading fell in May the same year.[10][11]

In the 1999 Loksabha election, Samata Party was in an informal alliance with the Lok Shakti and the Janata Dal(U). A proposal to merge the three into a single party was called off in January 2000 by George Fernandes who said the party would contest in the 2000 Bihar Legislative Assembly election on its own.

Samata Party / समता पार्टी (SAP)

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