With 26 ministers taking oath along with the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who was sworn in as the state’s CM for a record 10th time, the NDA has attempted a caste balance in the new council of ministers which has eight general category ministers, seven ministers from the OBC category (including Nitish), six from the EBC categories, five SC ministers and one Muslim.
As reported by TDG on Thursday, all NDA ministers have not taken oath on Thursday and the council has berths for at least 10 more ministers who will be sworn in only next year now after further consultations between the JDU and the BJP are conducted.
While the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is an OBC leader who belongs to the Kurmi caste, his two deputy CMs – Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha belong to the Kushwaha (OBC) and the Bhumihar caste respectively. The BJP has repeated both of its deputy CMs.
Further, the council of ministers includes five more OBCs including Ram Kripal Yadav, Arun Shankar Prasad, Deepak Prakash (son of RLM chief Upendra Kushwaha), Brijendra Prasad Yadav and Shravan Kumar.
The six EBCs leaders who have been sworn in as ministers include Dilip Jaiswal, Madan Sahni, Surendra Mehta, Narayan Prasad, Rama Nishad and Dr Pramod Kumar.
Apart from this, five leaders from the SC category have also been sworn in as ministers while one Muslim Mohammad Zama Khan of the JD(U) has also been appointed as a minister.
BJP drops 16 sitting ministers, JD (U) drops five
The BJP has dropped as many as 16 sitting ministers while the JD (U) has dropped five.
Among the ministers dropped by the BJP include Prem Kumar, Sanjay Saraogi, Motilal Prasad, Raju Kumar Singh, Krishna Kumar Mantoo, Renu Devi, Vijay Mandal, Kedar Gupta, Neeraj Singh, Nitish Mishra, Jibesh Mishra, Janak Ram, Sunil Kumar, Hari Sahni, Krishnanand Paswan and Santosh Singh.
The ministers dropped by the JD(U) include Sheela Mandal, Maheshwar Hazari, Jayant Raj, Ratnesh Sada and Sumit Kumar Singh.
However, JD (U) sources said that some of the ministers are likely to be accommodated in the council of ministers next year.
“The cabinet expansion will happen next year only now. Anything is expected only after Makar Sankranti when the inauspicious kharmaas period of the Hindu calender ends. Some names may be included in the council of ministers then,” a senior JD (U) leader told TDG.
A Bihar BJP leader said that dropping senior leader Prem Kumar from the post of minister means that the party wants to elevate him as the speaker of the Bihar assembly- a post which the JD (U) too has claimed as reported by the TDG on Thursday.
“The party wants to elevate Prem Kumar as the speaker of the Bihar assembly. The name for the speaker’s post will be clear within the coming days. The speaker will be from the BJP,” the leader said expressing confidence that the party will manage to prevail over the JD(U) to have its own speaker.
However, JD (U) sources said that the issue continues to be under discussion.
The NDA which targets the opposition over ‘parivarvad (dynastic politics),’ has given ministerial berths to the sons of the chiefs of its alliance partners Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM-S) and Upendra Kushwaha (Rashtriya Lok Morcha). Manjhi’s Santosh Kumar Suman has become a minister again.
BJP set for organisation rejig in Bihar
With the NDA inducting Bihar BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal as a minister in the Nitish Kumar council of ministers, the BJP is set to do an organization rejig in Bihar following the party’s “one person, one post” rule. Jaiswal had served as the revenue minister in the Nitish cabinet between March 2024 to February 2025 before becoming the Bihar BJP state president.
A senior Bihar BJP leader said that with Jaiswal in the council of ministers, the party will soon have a new Bihar BJP chief too.
Among the probables include Janak Ram, a senior Dalit leader of the Bihar BJP whose name had been doing the rounds for the post in 2022 too.
While all the eight JD (U) leaders sworn in as ministers are ministers who have previously served in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, the BJP has made several new faces as ministers.
Among the new ministers from the BJP include Sanjay Singh Tiger, Arun Shankar Prasad, Narayan Prasad, Lakhendra Paswan, Shreyashi Singh and Pramod Kumar Chandravanshi.
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Sofia Babu Chacko is a journalist with over five years of experience covering Indian politics, crime, human rights, gender issues, and stories about marginalized communities. She believes that every voice matters, and journalism has a vital role to play in amplifying those voices. Sofia is committed to creating impact and shedding light on stories that truly matter. Beyond her work in the newsroom, she is also a music enthusiast who enjoys singing.
