Bihar cabinet expands, 31 ministers inducted

Rashtriya Janata Dal RJD leader Tej Pratap Yadav and four other MLAs were among the nearly 31 MLAs who were sworn in on Tuesday as ministers in Bihars new cabinet as part of chief minister Nitish KumarEarlier today Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar reached the Raj Bhavan in Patna for the swearingin ceremonyAhead of the Cabinet expansion JDUU MLA Leshi Singh on Tuesday confirmed that she will be getting a post in the new cabinetNearly 30 ministers inducted into the cabinet today hail from various parties that are part of Mahagathbandhan or the Grand Alliance including the CongressAlso readBihar politics BJP top brass to hold meeting on TuesdayThe Bihar cabinet can have up to 36 ministers including the Chief Minister Some ministerial berths will be kept vacant for future cabinet expansion sources saidNitish Kumar had broken away from the BJP and formed a government with the RJD and other parties earlier this month The Chief Minister and his deputy RJDs Tejashwi Yadav took oath on August 10The Bihar Grand Alliance has a combined strength of 163 Its effective strength climbed to 164 after Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh extended its support to Nitish Kumar The new government is likely to prove majority in the Bihar assembly on August 24The BJPs central leadership will hold a meeting with the partys Bihar unit leaders here on Tuesday days after the JDU parted ways with it and formed a new government in the stateThey are likely to deliberate upon the BJPs future course of action and the strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls sources said adding organisational changes may also come up for discussion The meeting will be chaired by BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda and the general secretary organisation BL Santhosh will also be presentThe 2020 Assembly polls in Bihar was a tight one with the National Democratic Alliance winning 125 seats with BJP winning 74 of these the Janata Dal United of Nitish Kumar 43 the Vikassheel Insaan Party 4 and Hindustan Awaam Party Secular 4 This put the NDA just above the requisite 122majority mark needed to form the governmentThe RJD and its allies on the other hand had won 110 seats The RJD finished as the singlelargest party with 75 seats while the Congress won a mere 19 seats Of the 29 seats the Left parties had contested they won in 16 with the CPI MLLiberation winning 12 of them Asaduddin Owaisis AIMIM had won five seats in the Seemanchal region of the state Four of its MLAs have switched to the RJDThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever