Nitish Kumar inducts 8 JDU MLAs as Bihar Ministers, no space for ally BJP

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was apparently upset after being offered just one Cabinet berth in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, on Sunday decided to keep his ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of Cabinet expansion. Kumar has inducted eight new faces - all from his Janata Dal (United).

Kumar, after the cabinet expansion, said the BJP was offered a berth in his cabinet, but it was not too keen. The chief minister also said the vacancies were majorly created by JDU ministers, who resigned from their posts for various reasons.

Seconding Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister and BJP's senior leader Sushil Kumar Modi said the party was offered a ministerial berth, but it opted out of it for now. "Nitish Kumar has offered BJP to fill the vacant ministerial seat. The BJP decided to fill it in the future," the deputy chief minister tweeted.

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.

Tension seems to have been brewing between the alliance partners over allotment of berth in the Narendra Modi cabinet, although Kumar asserted that there was "no unease" between the partners.

The JDU, he had said, decided against joining the Modi ministry as allies were not given "proportional representation" in the cabinet.

Three seats in the Nitish Kumar cabinet fell vacant following the election of JDU ministers to the Lok Sabha.

The three ministers who were elected to the Lower House of Parliament included Water Resources Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Disaster Management Minister Dinesh Chandra Yadav, and LJP's Bihar unit chief and Animal and Fisheries Resources Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras.

One post fell vacant last year after Manju Verma resigned as Social Welfare Minister in the wake of the Muzaffarpur shelter home case.

Among those who attended Sunday's swearing-in ceremony were Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary, RJD Bihar unit president Ram Chandra Purbey and several ministers of the Nitish KUmar government.

This is the second time in two years when Nitish Kumar expanded his cabinet.    

On July 29, 2017, he has inducted 27 ministers from all three NDA constituents, the JDU, the BJP, and the LJP.