Cabinet expansion: 'Helpless' Nitish accepts old offer; Ravi Shankar Prasad dropped

The expansion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Cabinet has turned into big shockers to Bihar politics as 'helpless' Nitish Kumar has accepted the old offer of PM Modi of one cabinet berth and Patna Sahib MP Ravi Shankar Prasad has been dropped from the Cabinet, writes ETV Bharat Bihar Bureau Chief Amit Bhelari.

Patna:The famous proverb 'Khoda pahad, nikli chuhiya' meaning 'dug up a mountain, out came a mouse' fits for JDU in the present scenario as helpless Nitish Kumar has accepted the old offer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of one cabinet berth. Similarly, another big shock for Bihar came in the form of dropping Patna Sahib MP Ravi Shankar Prasad from the Union Cabinet. Prasad was a Law Minister apart from holding Electronics and IT portfolios. He was recently at loggerheads with Twitter over the new IT rules.

On the contrary, the JDU leaders in Bihar have created such hype for the past one week as if the party was certain of getting four to five cabinet berths. Even JDU president RCP Singh and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had kept on telling the media on several occasions to wait due to which curiosity kept on increasing about JDU number in the cabinet. However, looking at the outcome, it seems that Nitish should have accepted this offer two years back instead of accepting it now.

Soon after the formation of the Narendra Modi government in 2019, Nitish was offered one cabinet berth to JDU but Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had rejected the offer terming it a symbolic representation. Nitish had stressed upon proportional representation of his party. Two years down the line, helpless Nitish accepted that old offer having a sense that he cannot do much into it. It is also justified because JDU will be a part of the Union Cabinet after the gap of 16 years as last time it was 2004 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM.

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Why Nitish is being a happy person with just one berth in the Cabinet despite having 16 MPs in Lok Sabha could be understood from the fact that though JDU is third number party. With the second-largest party in the Bihar assembly, BJP has accepted him as CM. In that scenario, Nitish cannot ask much from PM Modi and can easily put forward this logic that it's the prerogative of the PM to make or not to make a minister in the cabinet.

In a bigger perspective, all the speculation related to Cabinet expansion with regards to Bihar leaders has gone for a toss. Only two could make it into the Union Council led by Narendra Modi with one exception in the form of RK Singh who has been now promoted to the rank of Union Cabinet Minister from MoS. JDU president and Rajya Sabha member RCP Singh and Pashupati Kumar Paras, the younger brother of late Ram Vilas Paswan, have been inducted in the Cabinet expansion.

Interestingly, except for one, no other leaders from JDU could make it into the Cabinet expansion despite the talk that at least four berths would be offered to JDU. JDU Munger MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh was the front runner for the Union Cabinet as he is said to have played a crucial role in the split of LJP. He also could not make it and was left in an upset mood. Lalan was more than sure as being one of the closest aides of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to get inducted but he remained in Patna after not receiving any call like RCP and Paras.

JDU was hoping to make the caste equation balanced in Bihar through accommodating leaders from the OBC and EBC communities in the form of Santosh Kumar Kushwaha and Ramnath Thakur respectively. However, all the planning and preparation turned futile when the PM chose to accommodate only one leader from JDU.

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Interestingly, one name from Bihar BJP which was trending on top was Sushil Kumar Modi, Rajya Sabha member and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar. His name was making rounds in the Bihar political corridors as being the most seasoned politician of Bihar. Unfortunately, he also did not receive any call and remained in Patna like Lalan.

All the air was cleared on the name of Paras after he was elected as the new president of the LJP with the support of four other LJP MPs when a coup took place in the party last month. Paras had even received a call from Home Minister Amit Shah on July 5 on the day of the birth anniversary of Ram Vilas. RCP, the bureaucrats turned politician and close confidante of Nitish was almost sure of getting into the Union Cabinet. Born in Nalanda district, former IAS officer of UP cadre belongs from the same Kurmi caste.

Having been a long association with Nitish since the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when Nitish was a Railway Minister, RCP was once his Principal Secretary. In 2010, RCP had taken the VRS and the same year he was nominated to Rajya Sabha. The JDU workers and supporters celebrated the occasion in the party office distributing sweets and playing music as if the party had bagged five berths in the cabinet expansion.

One interesting fact was also revealed that the party president, be it of Samta Party or JDU did become a Minister at the Centre. They all became Union Ministers before or after being the party president like George Fernandes, Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and now RCP.

Jamui MP Chirag Paswan on the other hand expressed his strong reservation on the induction of Paras in the Modi cabinet. In a series of tweets, Chirag said that LJP had filed a petition in Delhi High Court against the Lok Sabha speaker's initial decision to recognise Paras as the LJP parliamentary party leader.

Patna based political expert Dr Sanjay Kumar opined that JDU has become weak in the present scenario and that's the reason Nitish accepted the offer.

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“Nitish knows very well that because of the BJP, he is sitting on the post of the Chief Minister. Nitish cannot bargain in such a situation and that's the reason, he has to accept what PM will give him. The results of the 2020 Assembly election has proved that he is not in the position to pressurise BJP. If Nitish would have been in a strong position he would have taken more berth citing the example of BJP and JDU MPs numbers in Bihar. However, he has no choice but to accept the offer. Nitish is not even in a position to shake Modi's government because BJP is already in full majority,” Dr Sanjay stressed.