Nitish Kumar appoints Rajiv Ranjan Singh as Leader of the JDU Parliamentary Party

Janata Dal (United) has selected Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh as a leader of JD (U) Parliamentary Party for the 17th Lok Sabha.

The ruling party, which turned in a stellar position in Bihar, has also appointed Baidyanath Prasad Mahto selected as Deputy leader of JD (U) Parliamentary Party and Dileshwar Kamait selected as JD(U)'s chief whip.  Mahto won recently concluded elections from Mahto Lok Sabha Seat of Bihar.

Earlier, there were reports that Lalan Singh was the strong contenders for the Cabinet berth in Modi 2.0 government. However, the JD (U), decided against joining the Modi Cabinet saying allies were not given "proportional representation" in the cabinet.

The JD (U), Nitish Kumar had said, decided against joining the Modi ministry as allies were not given "proportional representation" in the cabinet.

Days after that, the Bihar chief minister expanded his cabinet with the induction of eight new faces - all from his JD (U). Members of allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), were left out from the cabinet expansion.

Kumar, after the cabinet expansion, said the BJP was offered a berth in his cabinet, but the saffron party was not too keen.

The new ministers - Narendra Narayan Yadav, Shyam Rajak, Ashok Choudhary, Bima Bharti, Sanjay Jha, Ram Sewak Singh, Niraj Kumar, and Lakshmeshwar Rai - were administered the oath of office and secrecy at a function at the Raj Bhavan here by Governor Lalji Tandon.

Kumar said the vacancies were majorly created by JD (U) ministers, who resigned from their posts for various reasons.

The JD-U is the third largest party in the National Democratic Alliance, after the BJP and Shiv Sena. The BJP has 303 MPs and the Shiv Sena 18.