Nitish Kumar Cabinet Expansion: A Look At The New Bihar MLAs

A total of 31 ministers were inducted into the cabinet of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, after his dramatic exit from the alliance with the BJP in Bihar. Kumar, who has now allied with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, did not announce right away who would be in his cabinet.

On Tuesday, a swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhawan in Patna. The Mahagathbandhan had a strength of 163 MLAs already and it rose to 164 an independent MLA extended their support to the alliance.

The portfolios of each minister have not been announced yet. After the ceremony, Kumar told the media, "The portfolios will be allocated shortly. I will hold a meeting of the entire cabinet today once again."

Congratulating the newly inducted MLAs, Tejashwi Yadav said on Twitter, "I hope and believe that all the ministers will contribute to the development of Bihar under the leadership of Nitish Kumar with complete loyalty, diligence, honesty, transparency and mutual coordination."

Here's what the new Bihar cabinet looks like

JD(U)

Most of the MLAs from Kumar's previous cabinet took oath on Tuesday. They include MLAs Sheela Kumari Mandal, Madan Sahni, Leshi Singh, Bijendra Yadav, Shravan Kumar, Ashok Choudhary, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Sanjay Jha, Sheela Kumari, Mohd Zama Khan, Jayant Raj and Sunil Kumar.

RJD

While Tejashwi Yadav is the deputy chief minister, his brother and RJD leader Tej Pratap Yadav also took oath into the cabinet on Tuesday. Others from the RJD who took oath include Anita Devi, Sudhakar Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Mohammad Israil Mansuri, Lalit Kumar Yadav, Kumar Sarvajeet, Surendra Prasad Yadav, Ramanand Yadav, Samir Kumar Mahaseth, Jitendra Kumar Rai, Alok Mehta and Alok Mehta.

Others

Congress MLAs Murari Prasad Gautam and Afaque Alam, Santosh Suman from Jitin Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha and a single independent MLA, Sumit Kumar Singh, also took oath during the ceremony.