On Friday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar added 21 new members to his cabinet, which was formed in less than two months. The number of inductions increased to 30, which is just six less than the state’s constitutional limit.
Governor Rajendra Arlekar administered the oath of office to nine members of the Chief Minister’s JD(U) and twelve members of the allied BJP at a ceremony held inside the Raj Bhavan.
BJP leaders, jubilant at their return to power in the state, raised chants of “Jai Shri Ram,” “Narendra Modi Zindabad,” and “Abki baar 400 paar” during the function, which was attended by a host of dignitaries, including the Chief Minister and his two deputies, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.
The BJP has relied on a combination of experience and new blood, even though all JD(U) inductees—aside from Maheshwar Hazari, who resigned as the Assembly’s Deputy Speaker last month—had ministerial positions in the previous Mahagathbandhan administration.
Renu Devi, a Deputy Chief Minister till Kumar ended the agreement in August 2022, and her Cabinet colleagues Mangal Pandey, Nitin Nabin, Neeraj Kumar Singh “Bablu,” and Janak Ram are among the BJP’s ministers.
Nitish Mishra, a recent BJP induction, is the son of the late Jagannath Mishra, a prominent Congress politician who had three consecutive terms as Bihar’s chief minister. Mishra formerly belonged to the JD(U) and was a cabinet member appointed from that party’s quota.
In addition, BJP leaders Santosh Kumar Singh, Kedar Prasad Gupta, Surendra Mehta, Krishnanandan Paswan, Hari Sahni, and Dilip Kumar Jaiswal have also made their debut appearances in the Cabinet. Among the JD(U) entrants are Ashok Choudhary, a close confidant of the Chief Minister, and Mohd Zama Khan, who became the only Muslim member of the NDA Cabinet.
Leshi Singh, Sheela Mandal, Madan Sahni, Ratnesh Sada, Sunil Kumar Singh, Jayant Raj, and Madan Sahni are among the other JD(U) politicians who have returned as ministers. The JD(U) had four ministers, including the Chief Minister, and three from the BJP, two of whom were designated as Deputy Chief Ministers, in the Cabinet that was created at the end of January prior to the enlargement. Shravan Kumar, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, and Bijendra Yadav are the other JD(U) ministers.