Bihar: Cabinet Expansion: Nishant Kumar, son of former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, was sworn in as a minister in the Bihar cabinet on Thursday alongside 31 other leaders from the NDA alliance, in a ceremony held at Gandhi Maidan in Patna that drew Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and several senior central ministers. Governor Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain administered the oath in the presence of Modi, Shah, BJP national president Nitin Nabin and other NDA leaders.
Nishant’s entry into active politics comes after his father stepped down as Chief Minister to take up a Rajya Sabha seat. An engineering graduate, he had initially resisted accepting any political post, preferring to work his way up as a party worker. JDU leaders and workers had, however, been pushing for his induction into the government.
The Cabinet Takes Shape
From the JDU quota, Shweta Gupta is set to make her ministerial debut, while Damodar Rawat has also been inducted. Sources said most senior JDU leaders who served in the previous Nitish Kumar cabinet have been accommodated again.
From the BJP side, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha received a call for the swearing-in, along with Kedar Gupta, Mithilesh Tiwari, Nitish Mishra, Pramod Chandravanshi, Rama Nishad, Lakhindra Paswan, Sanjay Singh Tiger and Engineer Shailendra, who is expected to receive his first ministerial opportunity.
Uncertainty lingered late into Wednesday night over representation from Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha. Sources said Kushwaha held discussions with Amit Shah until late in the evening. Deepak Prakash, Kushwaha’s son, is likely to be inducted from the RLM quota. He had previously served as a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet despite not being a member of either house.
A Day With Added Significance
JDU leader Ratnesh Sada, who confirmed he had received a call regarding a cabinet berth, described the occasion as one carrying special meaning. “It is a day of pride today, especially because of the BJP-NDA’s victory in West Bengal. There cannot be a happier occasion than today when the Samrat Choudhary-Nitish Kumar cabinet expansion is happening,” he told ANI.
Upendra Kushwaha took a matter-of-fact view of proceedings. “This was a standard procedure, since there was a change in the Chief Minister, the expansion of the Council of Ministers was bound to happen,” he told reporters, adding that the entire government remained committed to Bihar’s development. “The newly formed Council of Ministers will work together to accelerate Bihar’s progress at a rapid pace,” he said.
The Backdrop
The cabinet expansion follows the NDA’s commanding performance in the Bihar assembly elections, in which the alliance won 202 of the 243 seats, delivering a near three-fourths majority. The Mahagathbandhan was reduced to just 35 seats. Within the alliance, the BJP won 89 seats, JDU secured 85, LJP (Ram Vilas) won 19, HAM (Secular) took five, and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha claimed four.
Samrat Choudhary became Bihar’s first BJP Chief Minister last month. Thursday’s ceremony marked the full formation of his cabinet, a moment the state, by most accounts, had been waiting for since that appointment.
Amit Shah had arrived in Patna on Wednesday evening, visited the Panchroopi Hanuman temple in Rajbansi Nagar and held a series of meetings with BJP and NDA leaders ahead of the swearing-in.
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