Bihar Cabinet Expansion: 21 New Ministers Inducted in Nitish Kumar-Led Government

Nitish Kumar Cabinet Expansion: The Nitish Kumar-led Cabinet’s much awaited expansion in Bihar took place with the induction of 21 ministers to the Cabinet on Friday. The MLAs from both the JDU and the BJP took oath as the state ministers at the swearing-in ceremony held late Friday evening at Raj Bhavan in Patna. The event also formally marked the induction of six first-time miniters out of the 12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs, who were sworn in on Friday.

Among the MLAs, who took oath as the minister of Bihar, ex-Deputy Chief Minister Renu Devi, Mangal Pandey, Aruna Devi, Dilip Jaiswal, Hari Sahni, Surendra Mehta and Santosh Singh.

6 newly inducted ministers are first timer

The Bihar Cabinet expansion on Friday took everyone by surprise, as the list consists of names, who were sworn in as the minister of the state for the first time.

Notably, CM Nitish Kumar on January 28 took oath as the chief minister of Bihar for the 9th time after rejoining the NDA in the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Along with him, two Deputy CM and a few other MLAs had also taken oath as the minister. This event was followed after he parted ways from the INDI Alliance which included Lalu Prasad Yadav’s party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and other opposition parties. 

Apart from the 12 MLAs of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 9 MLAs of the Janata Dal-United (JDU) have been included in the cabinet. The newly inducted Cabinet appears to be well balanced based on the caste equation.

In the newly included ministers, 6 are from the Scheduled Caste (SC), 4 from the OBC, and 1 is Muslim Minister.

The 12 BJP MLAs, who have been sworn in as the ministers includes the names of Mangal Pandey, Aruna Devi, Neeraj Bablu, Nitish Mishra, Nitin Naveen, Janak Ram, Kedar Gupta, Dilip Jaiswal, Hari Sahni, Krishna Nandan Paswan, Surendra Mehta and Santosh Singh.