Nitish Kumar distributes portfolios; Sushil Modi gets finance ministry

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday night distributed portfolios among the newly inducted ministers.

Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma is the new Education Minister, Nand Kishore Yadav new Road Construction Minister and Prem Kumar is the state Agriculture Minister. All the three are ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) quota.

Nitish Kumar has himself kept with himself Home, General Administration, Vigilance and other departments that were not given to any one.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi has also been assigned the portfolios of Finance, Forest and Environment, and Information Technology.

Senior Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Bijender Prasad Yadav is the new Bihar Energy, Excise and Prohibition Minister, Lalan Singh is Water Resource and Planning Minister and Sharavan Kumar is the Rural Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister.

A day after winning the trust vote, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday expanded his Cabinet, inducting 27 ministers — 14 from his JD-U and 13 from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi administered the oath to 26 new ministers at the Raj Bhavan.

One BJP legislator, Mangal Pandey, failed to take oath as he was held up in Shimla in Himachal Pradesh due to bad weather.

Nitish Kumar refused to induct ministers from two allies of the NDA in his cabinet — Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) of Union Minister Upender Kushwaha and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Nitish Kumar informed BJP leaders that he would keep the two parties out of the government.