Nitish Kumar keeps Home, Tejashwi gets Health, Roads
New Delhi: With Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) getting the lion's share of portfolios in the Cabinet expansion of the Mahagathbandhan government, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the party has attempted to implement its 'MY (Muslim-Yadav)-plus' strategy while the Janata Dal (United) has stuck to its 'tried and trusted' rainbow social combination comprising of OBC, EBC, Dalit and Upper caste.
In the Cabinet of 31 ministers in the new Nitish Kumar-led government, 16 are from the RJD, 11 are from the JD(U), two are from Congress, one from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and one is an Independent MLA. The present strength of the Bihar Cabinet is 33, including CM and the deputy CM, against a maximum strength of 36 ministers.
Ending all speculations, the chief minister has retained the Home ministry with himself and taken control of Finance by entrusting Vijay Kumar Choudhary with the key portfolio. With this, Nitish Kumar has marked Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who belongs to the dominant Bhumihar community, as the most important leader in the party after him at the moment. Bijendra Prasad Yadav, who is the Yadav face in JD(U), has been allotted the Energy portfolio.
Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav has been allotted four crucial departments of Health, Road Construction, Urban Development & Housing, and Rural Works. It shows Tejashwi's high stature in the current administration. Deputy CM's elder brother Tej Pratap, who had held the Health department in the previous coalition government, has been given charge of the department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The crucial Education portfolio has also gone to the RJD's Chandra Shekhar.
The RJD has six ministers from the Yadav community. The Yadav ministers from RJD quota are Tej Pratap Yadav, Madhepura MLA Chandra Shekhar, Belaganj MLA Surendra Prasad Yadav, Fatuha MLA Ramanand Yadav, Darbhanga Rural MLA Lalit Yadav and Marhaura MLA Jitendra Rai and all these six ministers cater to the regions of Samastipur, Gaya, Patna, Madhepura, Darbhanga, and Saran.
The party that gets a significant vote share from Muslims has given them three berths. The three MLAs belonging to the minority community are Shahnawaz Alam, the son of former MP Taslimuddin, Israil Mansuri, a Pasmanda Muslim from Muzaffarpur and Shamim Ahmad from the Champaran belt. Anita Devi, who belongs to the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) community, is the only woman from the RJD side. She was also a minister in the previous Mahagathbandhan government.
The RJD, which claims to be a party of backward classes, has tried to maintain the social balance among non-Yadav OBCs, EBCs, and the Scheduled Caste (SC). Giving ministerial berths to former MP Alok Mehta, who is an OBC Kushwaha leader from Samastipur and Sameer Mahaseth (Madhubani), who belongs to the OBC Vaishya community, is a step in the direction of maintaining social balance as RJD has nominated Kumar Sarvjeet from Bodh Gaya and Surendra Ram from Saran as ministers from the SC community.
In an attempt to keep the Bhumihar vote intact, the RJD has made first-time MLC Kartik Singh a minister. Singh is an upper-caste Bhumihar and during the Bochaha assembly bypoll in April, RJD had wrested the seat from the Vikassheel Insaan Party with the support of Bhumihar vote share.
Given that Rajputs, an upper caste in Bihar, have always been part of the RJD's political template, Tejashwi has included Sudhakar Singh, the son of the party's state president Jagdanand Singh, into the new Cabinet.
Contrary to RJD, the JD(U) has not made any new experiment in the selection of ministers as it has retained all 11 ministers who represent the party's rainbow social combination.
Apart from Vijay Kumar Choudhary (Bhumihar) and Bijendra Prasad Yadav (OBC), its ministers are Jayant Raj (Kushwaha), Ashok Kumar Choudhary (SC), Shravan Kumar (OBC Kurmi), Leshi Singh (Rajput), Madan Sahni (EBC), Sanjay Kumar Jha (Brahmin), Sheela Kumari (EBC), and Sunil Kumar (SC). The party has nominated Jama Khan, who was earlier with the Bahujan Samaj Party, as its lone Muslim minister.
Unlike the previous Mahagathbandan government, this time the Congress went ahead with an SC-Muslim combination as it nominated Mohammed Aafaque Alam from Purnia and Surendra Ram from Rohtas as its ministers.
Former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi's son Santosh Kumar 'Suman' is minister from Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) party quota, while Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh, who belongs to the Rajput community, has also been included in the Nitish Cabinet. Sumit Singh is the son of former minister Narendra Singh.
