Patna: The new cabinet of Chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav has maintained the balance in the caste equation. The expansion of the cabinet has the representation of most of the castes something that is seen as a loud and clear message to the saffron party who will now be donning the role of the opposition in Bihar.
Nitish's JDU has retained the old faces in the new cabinet whereas RJD has attempted to explore the new and young faces like Kumar Sarvajeet, Mohammad Israil Mansuri, Sudhakar Singh, Shahnawaz Alam Jitendra Rai and Surendra Ram. Looking at the caste equations of the new cabinet including Nitish and Tejashwi, Yadav is the dominant caste as being the core voter of RJD.
The new cabinet has 8 ministers from Yadav, 5 Muslims, 5 scheduled castes, 4 EBC, 2 Kushwaha, 3 Rajputs, 2 Bhumihar and one each from Bhraman and Vaish caste. Making a fine balance, Nitish distributed 20 portfolios each among RJD and JDU whereas two went to Congress and one each to Santosh Kumar Suman of HAM and Independent Sumit Kumar Singh.
On Tuesday, 31 ministers were inducted into the cabinet out of which 16 from RJD, 11 from JDU, 2 from Congress and one each from HAM and Independent. Governor Phagu Chauhan administered the oath to the newly inducted minister in a function held at Raj Bhavan.
With the expansion of the cabinet, the functioning of the department is expected to pace up after the split of JDU and BJP. Tejashwi has got four important portfolios including health which was earlier occupied by Mangal Pandey in NDA. Most importantly, Lalu Yadav's eldest son Tej Pratap Yadav who oversaw health in the first term of the grand alliance has now been given Environment, Forest and Climate Change department.
Initially, there was a lot of buzz over the home department, however, Nitish has managed to keep it under his folder apart from other important portfolios. Education department which was earlier being looked after by JDU has now gone to RJD in the form of Chandrasekhar as its minister. Whereas Vijay Kumar Choudhary who was earlier serving Nitish's cabinet as education minister has now been made finance minister of the state along with handling two other departments. Earlier finance was being handled by BJP's Tarkishore Prasad.
There are several new faces in the cabinet and young leaders have been given priority in the ministry including Sudhakar Singh as agriculture minister, Shahnawaz Alam as disaster management department minister, Mohammad Israil Mansuri as information and technology minister, Kartik Kumar who happens to be close of don turned politician Anant Singh has been given law department. Apart from this, Kumar Sarvajit and Jitendra Kumar Rai of RJD have been inducted into the cabinet for the first time.
Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh, son of former minister later Narendra Singh who represents the Chakai assembly seat was given the science and technology department portfolio. There was a lot of chaos in Congress over the ministerial berth however only two got a place in the new cabinet which includes Mohammad Afaq Alam and Murari Prasad Gautam.
As things stand now the Bihar cabinet can have a maximum of 36 ministers and after the expansion, the total comes to 31. Nitish and Tejashwi have made a fine caste balance in the distribution of the portfolios by giving representation to all the castes including, upper caste, Muslim, other backward caste and EBC.
Lalu Yadav was not present during the oath-taking ceremony as his health did not allow him to do so but Rabri was sitting next to Nitish. From now onwards it would be interesting to see how the Grand Alliance government functions in days to come with new team members.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will hold below-mentioned portfolios
Cabinet Secretariat, Vigilance department, Election Department, General Administration Department, Home Department and all other departments not allotted to anyone.
Here is the list of ministers in the Bihar cabinet along with their portfolios:
