NEW DELHI: The newly formed Bihar government got its Cabinet on July 29 with 26 ministers from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
However, BJP MLA Mangal Pandey, who was also supposed to take oath, was absent from the ceremony.
Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi administered the oath to 26 new ministers at the Raj Bhawan.
Only Kumar and Sushil Modi were sworn-in as the chief minister and the deputy chief minister on July 27 and the ministry was expanded a day after the new JD(U)-NDA government won the confidence vote in the Bihar Assembly.
In the 243-member House, a maximum of 37 ministers are allowed as per the constitutional provisions.
From BJP, Nandkishore Yadav, Prem Kumar, Ramnarayan Mandal, Vinod Narayan Jha, Suresh Sharma, Krishnakumar Rishi, Vinod Kushwaha, Rana Randhir, Vijay Sinha, Pramod Kumar and Brij Kishore Bind took oath. Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh, Bijendra Yadav, Shravan Kumar, Krishnandan Verma, Maheshwar Hazari, Santosh Nirala, Madan Sahaney, Khurshid Alam Firoz, Sailesh Kumar, Jai Kumar Sinha, Manju Verma, Kapildev Kamat, Ramesh Rishidev and Dinesh Chandra Yadav took oath from JD(U). And Pashupati Kumar Paras, a former MLA from LJP, also took oath as minister in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s cabinet.
The RLSP and the HAM, the two other NDA allies, went unrepresented. Kumar had on July 26 dumped the previous ministry comprising the JD(U), the RJD and the Congress and joined hands with the BJP to form the new government.
Nitish, on July 26, resigned as Bihar Chief Minister citing political differences with former ally, Lalu Prasad Yadav led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), over corruption charges against the RJD supremo’s son Tejashwi Yadav.
On July 27, Nitish and BJP leader Sushil Modi were sworn-in as Bihar Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively, and former has been asked to prove his majority on the floor by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi.
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