Nitish Kumar takes oath as Bihar CM; Tejashwi as his deputy

Patna: JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday took oath as Bihar chief minister for the eighth time in a ceremony at Raj Bhawan.

RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav was administered the oath of office as deputy chief minister.

The no-frills ceremony comes a day after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD to form a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government.

JDU is likely to retain the all-important Home portfolio, while the RJD may get most of the departments that were previously with the BJP, a highly-placed source said.

He said an in-principle agreement has been reached about the composition of the new cabinet, which is likely to have “35 members or more”, drawn from Kumar’s JD(U), the RJD and the Congress.

Kumar, who is being commended by opposition parties for joining the “anti-BJP camp”, also had a telephonic talk with Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the political situation.

According to broader contours of the power sharing formula, the RJD will have the largest number of ministers, in recognition of the fact that it has a higher number of MLAs.

“The JD(U) is likely to have 13 ministers, the RJD has settled for 16. The Congress will be given four berths, while former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM will have one member in the cabinet,” the source said.

A broad understanding is said to have been reached among the alliance partners on the names, barring the Congress, which needs the same to be approved by the party high command in Delhi.

The JD(U) is likely to reinstate as many of its ministers as possible from the previous cabinet, which was disbanded on Tuesday night vide a notification issued by the chief secretary.

Kumar himself will be keeping Home, which helps him have a control over the police. He is likely to also keep the departments related to welfare of extremely backward castes and minorities, which form his core constituency.

The RJD has prepared a list of names and shared it with party supremo Lalu Prasad for approval. While Tejashwi Yadav is certain to become the deputy CM, it is not yet decided which portfolios he will keep.

The in-principle decision to hand over BJP’s portfolios to RJD implies that it will get some key ones like health and road construction department, the source added