Two days after declining the offer to join Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government, eight JD-U MLAs were inducted as Cabinet Ministers into the Bihar government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday.

BJP, which is an ally of the JD(U) in Bihar, found no place in the expansion, triggering speculations that all is not well between the two parties.

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In what some see as a strategic move, Nitish Kumar reportedly offered one seat to the BJP – the same number the saffron party allotted to his party during the selection of Union Council of Ministers.

Kumar had turned down the BJP’s offer, calling it a “symbolic” representation. He, however, stated that there was no “anger” or “unease” between the parties.

Following the expansion, Kumar repeated that “everything is fine” with the NDA.

“Vacancies from JD(U) quota in the cabinet were empty so JD(U) leaders were inducted. There is no issue with BJP; everything is fine,” he said.

“BJP has decided that induction of their quota in the Cabinet would be done later,” he reportedly said.

But according to reports, Kumar was unhappy with the “symbolic representation”. The Bihar Chief Minister had asked for proportional representation on the ground that the JD-U won 16 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats it contested in Bihar.

The BJP had allotted only one seat to all its allies, which was accepted by everyone except JD(U).

“They (the BJP) said that they want to give one cabinet rank to every ally. Then we said that we will discuss it with the party members and then only we can say anything over this symbolic representation.

“I spoke to my party leaders and people and they were not agreeing to one berth and the symbolic representation. And this we communicated to them (BJP). They also called up in the morning and then we again conveyed our decision,” said Nitish Kumar while addressing the media in New Delhi on 30 May.

“The proposal that was given was unacceptable to the JD(U) therefore we have decided that in future also JD(U) will never be a part of the NDA led Union Cabinet. This is our final decision,” ANI quoted JD(U) leader KC Tyagi as saying on Sunday.

Meanwhile, commenting on the Bihar cabinet expansion, senior BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi said that there was no dispute.

He claimed that Nitish Kumar had offered the BJP to also fill up the ministerial berths but the BJP will wait for now.

There are now 33 Ministers in the Nitish Kumar Cabinet, up from 25.