Nitish Kumar Keeps Home, New BJP Deputy Gets Sushil Modi’s Portfolios

Patna: Newly sworn-in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today announced the various portfolios allotted among his council of ministers, keeping the home portfolio for himself. A 14-member council of ministers was sworn in by Governor Phagu Chauhan on Monday in Patna. This included two Deputy Chief Ministers, Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi, both from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Almost all the ministries earlier handled by former deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi have been passed to Mr Prasad, including finance, while Ms Devi would be handling women development.

Here are the top-10 developments on Bihar portfolio distribution front:

1. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today kept the home portfolio for himself. This is besides handling portfolios like general administration, vigilance, election, and other departments not distributed to any minister today.
2. Deputy Chief Minister Tarkishore Prasad of the BJP will handle Finance, Commercial Taxes, Environment and Forest, Information Technology, Disaster Management, and Urban development. Almost all of these were earlier handled by former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP.
3. Deputy Chief Minister Renu Devi of the BJP will be in charge of Panchayati Raj, Backward Caste Uplift, Extremely Backward Class Welfare, and Industry.
4. The JDU’s Vijay Kumar Chaudhary got Rural Engineering, Rural Development, Water Resources, Information and Broadcasting, and Parliamentary affairs. Bijendra Prasad Yadav of the BJP got Energy, Prohibition, Planning, Food and Consumer Affairs.
5. JDU’s Mewalal Choudhary, who won the Tarapur constituency, will be the next Education Minister. Shiela Kumari of the BJP will be Transport Minister.
6. Santosh Kumar Suman of the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) got the Minor Irrigation and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Welfare portfolios. Mr Suman is the son of HAM founder Jitan Ram Manjhi.
7. Mukesh Sahni of the Vikassheel Insaan Party will handle Animal Husbandry and Fisheries. The BJP’s Mangal Pandey will be in charge of Health, Road, and Art and Culture.
8. The BJP’s Amrendra Pratap Singh has been allotted the Agriculture, Cooperatives, and Sugar Cane; the party’s Rampreet Paswan will be in charge of Public Health Engineering.
9. Jivesh Misra will handle the tourism, mines, and labour portfolios.
10. Ram Surat Rai of the BJP has been given the Revenue and Law ministries.