Bihar cabinet expansion: 31 legislators take oath, RJD gets lion’s share

Thirty-one legislators, including Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav’s brother Tej Pratap Yadav, were sworn-in on Tuesday as part of Bihar’s new cabinet under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

As anticipated, the RJD being the single largest party in the state, has secured a lion’s share of the ministerial berths.

Among the ministers who took oath on Tuesday, 16 were from RJD, 11 from Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), two from the Congress, one from Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and an Independent MLA.

From the JD(U) the legislators who took oath as ministers are: Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Ashok Chaudhary, Sharavan Kumar, Lesi Singh, Sunil Kumar, Sheela Mandal, Jayant Raj, Jama Khan, Sanjay Jha and Madan Sahani.

From the RJD, the new ministers are: Tej Pratap Yadav, Alok Mehta, Dr Surendra Yadav, Dr Ramanand Yadav, Samir Mahasheth, Prof Chandrashekher Yadav, Anita Devi, Jitendra Rai, Sudhakar Singh, Lalit Yadav, Kumar Sarvajeet, Kartik Master, Surendra Ram, Mohammad Israil Mansuri (RJD), Shahnawaz Alam (RJD) and Shamim Ahmed.

From the Congress, the new ministers are: Afaq Alam and Murari Prasad Gautam. Sumit Kumar Singh is an Independent MLA and Santosh Kumar Suman is from the HAM.

The legislators took oath in the Raj Bhawan.

The total ministers in Bihar government reached 33 as Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav already took the oath of chief minister and deputy chief minister.

Following the cabinet expansion, eight ministers belong to the Yadav community apart from Bihar Vidhan Sabha speaker: five ministers are from the Muslim community, four Dalits, two from Kushwaha, two from Kurmi, three from Rajput, two from Bhumihar, one from Bhahmin, one from Sahani, and one from Vaisy caste will represent the Bihar government. Apart from these, Nitish Kumar belongs to the Kurmi community and Tejashwi Yadav is a Yadav. (IANS)