With less than a year left for assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday inducted seven new faces into his council of ministers, all from alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party.
The expansion, which could be the last before the elections are announced, raises the total number of ministers to 36, the maximum permissible in the state with a 243-strong assembly.
Governor Arif Mohammad Khan administered the oath of office to the new ministers who all are members of the assembly. The state also has a legislative council.
The development took place on a day state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal, the former minister for revenue and landforms, gave up his cabinet berth citing the party's policy of "one person, one post".
The new ministers include Jibesh Kumar, who was a member of the state Cabinet till August 2022, when the chief minister abruptly quit the NDA, accusing the BJP of trying to "break" his Janata Dal-United.
Jibesh Kumar, who returns to the state cabinet with just two days left for the commencement of the budget session, told reporters: "I am ready to discharge the responsibility to the best of my ability".
Other inductees are Sanjay Saraogi, a fifth-term MLA from Darbhanga, and Sunil Kumar, who represents Bihar Sharif, in the CM's pocket borough Nalanda, for as many times, thrice on a JD-U ticket before crossing over to the BJP in 2015.
"I look forward to discharging the new responsibility. Earlier, I used to pose questions to the government. Now, I shall be expected to reply to queries from fellow members," said Saraogi.
Another former JD-U face was Raju Kumar Singh, the MLA from Sahebganj in Muzaffarpur, who had won the seat in 2020 on a ticket of Vikassheel Insan Party, floated by former Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni.
The VIP had won altogether three seats but all the MLAs joined BJP two years ago after Sahni burnt his bridges with the saffron party, losing his cabinet berth in the bargain.
Singh came out with a guarded response when he was asked whether the ministerial berth could be seen as a "reward" for switching loyalty towards the BJP.
He said, "It is the party's prerogative to decide what responsibility should be given to whom. I shall try to live up to the expectations of the party as well as the people of Bihar".
Another notable face was Krishna Kumar Mantu, the MLA from Amnour in Saran district, who was recently in the news for organising a "Kurmi Chetna Rally" in Patna, with a view to reaching out to the powerful OBC community to which the JD-U supremo belongs.
The remaining two inductees were Vijay Kumar Mandal, who represents Sikti in Araria district and Moti Lal Prasad, the MLA from Riga in Sitamarhi.
A careful calculation of the BJP's support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party's national president chaired a meeting of the "core group" here.
Two of the new ministers, Jibesh Kumar (Bhumihar) and Raju Kumar Singh (Rajput), belong to the upper castes, which make for a little over 10 per cent of the population in Bihar, but have been the BJP's most loyal voters over decades.
Besides, with the exception of Sunil Kumar, all hail from the region north of the Ganges, where the NDA has been performing better than the rival RJD, Congress and Left combine.
Earlier in the day, the Bihar BJP chief quit as a Cabinet minister.
Jaiswal, who held the Revenue and Land Reform portfolio, was inducted into the cabinet in January last year after the BJP returned to power in the state with CM Nitish Kumar joining the NDA.
In July last year, he replaced Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary as the state BJP president.
"I am thankful to the party's leadership for entrusting me with major responsibilities. As a minister, I took pride in accomplishments like digitisation of records running into more than 11 crore pages. I shall now wholeheartedly devote myself to strengthening the party's organisation," he told reporters after tendering his resignation.
Jaiswal announced his resignation hours after BJP president JP Nadda chaired a meeting of the party's state core committee in Patna on Tuesday night.
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