Bihar cabinet expansion: CM Nitish Kumar inducts 21 new ministers

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday expanded his cabinet by including 21 ministers. With this, the total number of ministers in Bihar increased to 30 including the CM.

The swearing-in ceremony of the newly inducted ministers took place in Patna where Governor Rajendra Arlekar administered the oath to MLAs. Of the total 21 ministers inducted on Friday, 12 were from the BJP and the remaining nine were from JD (U).

From the BJP, the newly inducted ministers are Renu Devi, Mangal Pandey, Neeraj Kumar Babloo, Nitish Mishra, Nitin Nabin, Janak Ram, Kedar Gupta, Dilip Jaiswal, Krishnanandan Paswan, Santosh Kumar Singh, Surendra Mehta, and Hari Sahni.

From the JD (U), the ministers include Ashok Choudhary, Leshi Singh, Madan Sahni, Maheshwar Hazari, Sheila Kumari Mandal, Sunil Kumar, Jayant Raj, Zama Khan, and Ratnesh Sada.

After taking oath as a minister in the Bihar cabinet, BJP's Mangal Pandey said, "I have received the opportunity to become a minister for the third time. I express gratitude to PM Narendra Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, and state leadership for this opportunity. I understand these responsibilities... Earlier too, I worked honestly... NDA will win all 40 seats."

The Bihar cabinet expansion comes amid the ongoing seat-sharing talks between BJP and JD (U) for the upcoming Lok Sabha Polls. It is noteworthy that, with the support of the BJP, Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar on January 28.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, in a significant political development, all 11 candidates for the Bihar Legislative Council election, including Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, were declared elected unopposed to the state Legislative Council.