A day after taking oath as Bihar Chief Minister for the tenth time, Nitish Kumar on Friday allocated cabinet portfolios, handing over the Home Department to ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
For the first time since assuming office in 2005, Nitish Kumar will not handle the Home portfolio. Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Samrat Choudhary has been entrusted with the responsibility. Kumar has retained the General Administration Department (GAD), Cabinet Secretariat, Vigilance, Election, and other departments not allocated to any minister.
Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha will oversee the Land and Revenue departments along with Geology and Mines. BJP MLA Mangal Pandey has retained Health and will also head the Law Department. Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal has been assigned Industries.
Nitin Nabin will take charge of Roads and Urban Development, while Arun Shankar Prasad will head Tourism along with the Art, Culture and Youth Department. Ramkripal Yadav has been given Agriculture.
Portfolios have also been assigned to BJP MLAs Lakhendra Kumar Raushan (SC/ST Welfare), Sanjay Singh ‘Tiger’ (Labour Resources), Narayan Prasad (Disaster Management) and Shreyasi Singh (Information and Public Relations; Sports). Surendra Mehta will head Animal and Fisheries Resources, and Rama Nishad will oversee Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare.
Pramod Kumar has been allocated Cooperation as well as Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Among allies, JD(U) MLA Ashok Choudhary has been entrusted with Rural Works. HAM(S) leader Santosh Kumar Suman will head Education in addition to Minor Irrigation. LJP (Ram Vilas) MLA Sanjay Kumar Paswan will handle Sugarcane Industries, while his party colleague Sanjay Kumar Singh will lead Public Health Engineering. RLM’s Deepak Prakash has been given Panchayati Raj.
Fourteen leaders from the BJP have secured portfolios in the newly formed cabinet, in line with the party emerging as the single largest in the Assembly with 89 seats. Twelve new faces have been inducted, including the sons of Upendra Kushwaha and Jitan Ram Manjhi, and first-time MLA and shooter-turned-politician Shreyasi Singh.
Nitish Kumar returned as Chief Minister with 26 NDA MLAs sworn in as ministers — eight from JD(U), two from LJP (Ram Vilas), and one each from Rashtriya Lok Morcha and HAM(S).
Political observers note that if the NDA government completes its full term, the 74-year-old JD(U) leader could surpass Jyoti Basu’s nearly 23-year tenure as West Bengal Chief Minister. Nitish Kumar has already become the longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar, having held office in different terms since 2000.
The swearing-in ceremony was held at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan — the same venue that hosted Nitish Kumar’s inaugurations in 2005, 2010 and 2015, and where Jayaprakash Narayan delivered his historic “total revolution” call in 1974. The oath was administered by Bihar Governor Arif Mohammed Khan in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
-ANI