Bihar: Rift in Congress as Cabinet expansion looms; workers demand 5 ministerial berths

A day ahead of the Bihar Cabinet expansion, a rift in Congress came to the fore with workers demanding 5 ministerial berths for the Sonia Gandhi-led party. This comes even as the party has only 19 MLAs in the 242-member Bihar Assembly.

Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Bihar Congress headquarters at the Sadaquat Ashram in Patna where party workers shouted slogans against state unit chief Madan Mohan Jha and AICC in-charge Bhakt Charan Das. Speaking to the media on Monday, a Congress worker contended that leaders like Jha and Das will damage the interest of the party.

A Congress worker said, "These leaders will cause damage to the party. There is no leader here. My leader is Rahul Gandhi. The worker is the leader. We don't care about the in-charge. We have a quota of 5 and we should get 5 Ministers." 

Cabinet expansion on August 16

Five years after returning to the NDA fold, Nitish Kumar took another U-turn on August 9 and joined hands with RJD, Congress, and the Left once again. He submitted his resignation to Bihar Governor Phagu Chauhan and staked claim to form a new government with the support of 164 MLAs.

Thus, only BJP and the lone AIMIM MLA constitute the opposition space in Bihar now. Nitish Kumar and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav were sworn in as the CM and Deputy CM respectively in the Raj Bhavan on August 10.

This is Kumar's 8th term as the Chief Minister. As per sources, the Cabinet expansion will take place at 11.30 a.m. on Tuesday. Some of the prospective RJD Ministers include Tej Pratap Yadav, Kumar Sarvajeet, Alok Kumar Mehta, Lalit Yadav, Anita Devi, Anil Kumar Sahani, Bhai Virendra and Veena Singh. On the other hand, Madan Mohan Jha, Ajeet Sharma, Shakeel Ahmad Khan and Rajesh Kumar Ram of Congress are the main contenders to be inducted as Ministers.

HAM(S) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi's MLC son Santosh Kumar Suman might also find a place in the Cabinet. Overall, 16 RJD Ministers might be sworn in as compared to 13 of JDU. At present, the Mahagatbandhan government has the support of 164 MLAs including 79 RJD MLAs, 45 JDU MLAs, 19 Congress MLAs, 16 legislators of Left parties, 4 HAM(S) MLAs and one Independent.