NEW DELHI: Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar expanded his Cabinet on Wednesday, inducting seven new ministers all from the BJP.
This marks the final Cabinet expansion ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections scheduled later this year and underscores the BJP’s growing influence in the state politics.
With this expansion, Bihar will now have 36 ministers, the maximum allowed for a 243-member Assembly.
The new ministers include former minister Jibesh Kumar, five-term MLA Sanjay Sarangi (Darbhanga), three-term MLA Sunil Kumar (Bihar Sharif, Nalanda), Sahebganj MLA Raju Singh, Amnour MLA Krishna Kumar Mantu, Sikti MLA Vijay Mandal and Biga MLA Moti Lal Prasad.Jibesh Kumar previously served as a minister in the Nitish-led NDA government until 2022, when Nitish exited the NDA to rejoin the grand alliance with the RJD and Congress, retaining his position as Chief Minister. Sunil Kumar, formerly with the JD(U), joined the BJP in 2015. Raju Singh had won the Sahebganj seat in 2020 as a candidate of the Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP). All three VIP MLAs who won in 2020 are now in the BJP after Sahni fell out with the saffron party.
Krishna Kumar Mantu, the Amnour MLA, recently made headlines for organising the “Kurmi Chetna rally” in Patna. Nitish Kumar also belongs to the Kurmi community. Notably, all new ministers except Sunil Kumar represent constituencies north of the Ganges, a region where the BJP has consistently outperformed the RJD.
Ahead of the cabinet expansion, Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal resigned as Revenue and Land Reform Minister, adhering to the BJP’s “one person, one post” rule. Jaiswal was inducted as a minister last year after the BJP returned to power in Bihar, following Nitish’s fifth political realignment since 2013. Jaiswal had replaced Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary as the state BJP president.