Patna (Bihar) [India], November 21 (ANI): A day after the oath-taking ceremony, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday allocated cabinet portfolios to the newly elected National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MLAs who were sworn in as ministers, giving up the Home department to ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Samrat Choudhary, the Deputy Chief Minister and a BJP leader, has been given charge of the Home department. Kumar will not handle the Home department for the first time since he came to power in 2005.
Kumar has retained the General Administration Department (GAD), Cabinet Secretariat, Vigilance, Election, and other departments not allocated to any minister.
Vijay Kumar Sinha, Deputy CM and BJP MLA, will oversee the Land and Revenue departments, along with Geology and Mines.
Mangal Pandey, BJP MLA from Siwan, has retained the Health department and has also been allocated the Law department. Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal has been allocated the Industries department.
BJP MLA Nitin Nabin has taken charge of the Roads and Urban departments.
Arun Shankar Prasad of the BJP will take charge of the Tourism department, along with the Art, Culture, and Youth department. Ramkripal Yadav of the BJP will oversee the Agriculture department.
BJP’s Lakhendra Kumar Raushan and Sanjay Singh ‘Tiger’ will oversee the SC/ST Welfare and Labour Resources departments, respectively.
BJP MLA Narayan Prasad has been allocated the Disaster Management department, followed by BJP’s Shreyasi Singh, who has been given Information and Public Relations, along with the Sports department.
The Animal and Fisheries Resources department has been allocated to BJP MLA Surendra Mehta, while BJP’s Rama Nishad will oversee the Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare department.
BJP’s Pramod Kumar has been allocated the Cooperation department and will also oversee the Environment, Forests and Climate Change department.
Meanwhile, Janata Dal (United) MLA Ashok Choudhary has been allocated the Rural Works department. Santosh Kumar Suman of Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) will oversee the Education department, along with the Minor Irrigation department.
The cabinet allocation followed the oath-taking ceremony, where Nitish Kumar returned as Bihar Chief Minister for the 10th time, with 26 NDA MLAs sworn in as ministers. Of the 26 elected MLAs, eight are from JD(U), two from Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), and one each from Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) and HAMS.
Twelve new faces have been inducted into the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar cabinet, including sons of Kushwaha and Manjhi, along with Shreyasi Singh.
LJP(RV) leader Sanjay Kumar Paswan, a first-time MLA, will oversee the Sugarcane Industry department, while LJP(RV)’s Sanjay Kumar Singh has been allocated the Public Health Engineering department.
RLM’s Deepak Prakash will take charge of the Panchayati Raj department.
Fourteen leaders from the BJP have been allocated portfolios in the newly formed government in Bihar, given its emergence as the single largest party after winning 89 assembly seats.
Having been sworn in as the Bihar Chief Minister for the 10th time, Nitish Kumar is expected to surpass Jyoti Basu’s tenure, who remained West Bengal’s CM for 23 years—provided all goes well for the newly formed NDA government over the next five years.
If he manages to maintain cohesion within the NDA, the JD(U) chief could join the ranks of long-serving Chief Ministers like Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim and Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, who led their states for nearly 25 and over 24 years, respectively.
He is already the longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar.
Nitish’s first term as Chief Minister of united Bihar was in 2000 and was brief, as he held the post for only seven days. His second term was from 2005 to 2010, followed by his third term from 2010 to 2014.
The 74-year-old JD(U) stalwart resigned as CM in May 2014, taking moral responsibility for his party’s poor performance in the general elections. In February 2015, Kumar returned as CM after Jitan Ram Manjhi resigned ahead of a trust vote.
As the newly elected NDA MLAs were sworn in as ministers, leaders from the BJP, JD(U), LJP (Ram Vilas), and several other allies hailed the event as “historic,” stressing that the new government carries a massive responsibility after receiving a strong mandate from the people of Bihar.
The swearing-in ceremony took place at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, which has hosted inaugurations in 2005, 2010, and 2015. It was at this venue that Jayaprakash Narayan called for a “total revolution” in a 1974 speech.
Bihar Governor Arif Mohammad Khan administered the oath at a grand ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (ANI)
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