Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expanded his cabinet on Wednesday by inducting seven new faces from the BJP, raising the number of ministers to 36, the maximum permissible limit in the state with a 243-strong assembly.
With this expansion, the number of BJP ministers has increased to 21 against the JDU’s 13. One minister is from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (S) while another is an independent MLA, Sumit Kumar Singh.
Through the expansion, the state chief minister has tried to give representation to every caste and region with an eye on the upcoming elections in the state.
The new ministers are Raju Singh (Rajput), Jivesh Mishra (Bhumihar), Vijay Mandal (backward class), Krishna Kumar Mantu (Kurmi), Sunil Kumar (Kushwaha), Sanjay Saraogi (Vaishya) and Motilal Prasad (Teli).
Two MLAs from the Darbhanga district have been made ministers. Similarly, two other MLAs have been made ministers from the Tirhut division. Apart from this, one MLA each from Patna, Purnia, and Saran divisions has got a place in the Nitish cabinet.
The cabinet expansion, which was long overdue, has been delayed due to the preoccupation of the Central BJP leadership with parliamentary and assembly elections in various states. The party decided to induct seven new faces in the cabinet after a meeting with BJP President J P Nadda during his Patna visit on Tuesday.
One of the reasons for the delay in the cabinet expansion was that the decision on the assigning of departments to new ministers was not an easy task. It needed a major reshuffle in the departments of the existing ministers. The state leadership was not ready to take the risk of annoying the ministers at a time when the assembly elections in the state were round the corner. However, Nadda’s presence at the meeting eased the decision making process.
On Tuesday, Nadda met Nitish Kumar with a proposal to make seven more ministers from the BJP. Nitish accepted the proposal with a condition that JDU ministers would continue to hold their departments. The BJP chief agreed to the proposal that the new ministers would be assigned the departments currently held by the BJP MLAs.
Earlier, Bihar BJP President Dilip Jaisawal resigned as the revenue & land reforms minister of the state paving way for one new face to join the cabinet. He said, “I have resigned from the cabinet to follow the party’s policy of ‘one man, one post’. I am thankful to the party leadership for assigning me the responsibility to lead the party in Bihar. I will focus on making the organisation stronger ahead of the elections.”