Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM bags key Ministry in Bihar Cabinet compared to LJP-RV & HAM

Patna: Despite having just four MLAs in the Bihar Assembly, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) led by Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha has been allocated a Ministry with a substantially higher budget compared to smaller NDA allies like Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).

While the BJP and JD-U retain the majority of high-budget Ministries, the LJP-RV, HAM, and RLM have received four state departments.

However, in terms of budget strength, the RLM stands ahead of both LJP-RV and HAM, even though it has the fewest MLAs among them.

RLM’s Deepak Prakash, who is neither an MLA nor an MLC, has been inducted into the Bihar Cabinet and given charge of the Panchayati Raj Department — a Ministry with one of the largest budgets among smaller alliance partners.

The Panchayati Raj Department, led by Deepak Prakash, has an annual budget for the Financial Year 2025-26 is Rs 11,302.52 crore.

Compared to this, the Sugarcane Industry Department, led by LJP-RV’s Sanjay Kumar, has an annual budget of only Rs 192.23 crore.

The Public Health Engineering Department, led by LJP-RV’s Sanjay Kumar Singh, has an annual budget of Rs 2,702.63 crore.

Minor Water Resources Department, led by HAM’s Santosh Kumar Suman, the son of party supremo Jitam Ram Manjhi, has an annual budget of Rs 1,839.11 crore.

This means the budget for Deepak Prakash’s department is nearly six times larger than that of Santosh Suman’s Minor Water Resources Department.

It is about three-and-a-half times larger than the combined budgets of the LJP-RV’s departments.

Despite the BJP having two Deputy Chief Ministers and 14 Ministers in the Bihar Cabinet, the JD-U continues to dominate in terms of total budgetary control.

Among the total budget of the Bihar government, JD-U has a 65 per cent share, followed by 29.22 per cent share of BJP, 3.56 per cent share owned by RLM, 0.91 per cent by LJP-RV and 0.58 per cent by HAM.

This distribution highlights that Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM, though numerically the smallest among the NDA’s key allies, has secured a strategically significant department.

IANS