Bihar

As anticipated, the RJD being the single largest party in the state, has secured a lion's share of the ministerial berths. Among the ministers who took oath on Tuesday, 16 were from RJD, 11 from Nitish Kumar's JD(U), two from the Congress, one from Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and an Independent MLA. From the JD(U) the legislators who took oath as ministers are: Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Ashok Chaudhary, Sharavan Kumar, Lesi Singh, Sunil Kumar, Sheela Mandal, Jayant Raj, Jama Khan, Sanjay Jha and Madan Sahani.

The swearing-in ceremony will take place at Rajendra Mandapam inside Raj Bhawan here. The RJD announced the names of 15 MLAs for the cabinet and included Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav's elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav also. Other RJD MLAs are: Kumar Sarwajeet, Lalit Yadav, Surendra Yadav, Alok Mehta (MLC), Anita Devi, Surendra Ram, Samir Mahaseth, Shahnawaz Ahmed, Momammad Shamim, Kartik Master (MLC), Ramanand Yadav, Chandrashekher Yadav, Sudhakar Singh and Jitendra Rai.

Sources in the RJD confirmed that Madhepura MLA and Yadav leader Chandrashekher Yadav selected in the cabinet and he is most likely to take oath in the Raj Bhawan. Mohammad Shahnawaz, a Muslim leader who represents the Seemanchal area, and recently joined the RJD after leaving the AIMIM, would be also included in the cabinet. The RJD during 2020 assembly election did not perform well in the Seemanchal, and keeping that in mind, the RJD would not take any chances to compromise on the Muslim vote bank of Seemanchal area.

"Our ambition is to provide jobs to 20 lakh in government and private sectors in the state. Now, people of the new generation (Tejashwi Yadav) have come with us, hence, we will jointly execute our work to provide jobs to the people of Bihar. Our eventual goal is to bring Bihar to the developed state category," Kumar said.

Dipankar Bhattacharya, the national general secretary of CPI (ML), made the announcement on Saturday. "We are part of the seven party government in Bihar but we will not take any ministerial berth in it. The Bihar Chief Minister has taken an extremely bold decision in the interest of the nation which is highly appreciable. We will fully support him for the smooth functioning of this government," Bhattacharya said.

To Nitish Kumar's recent claim that R.C.P. Singh became Union Minister on his own, Sushil Modi said that if so, why did Nitish Kumar not sack him from the party? Why had he not given an application in the Rajya Sabha to terminate him from the house? Why had he not written a letter to PM Narendra Modi for the termination of R.C.P. Singh from the cabinet? That was the biggest lie that Nitish Kumar spoke.

"We have witnessed many incidents like the madarsa blast of Munger or the blast in Chapra. The SP of Saran claimed that the explosion took place in Chapra due to crackers. The present government is hiding facts about anti-national activities and incidents. "The present government is trying to suppress the probe of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

"We want the people of ED, CBI, Income Tax to open the offices inside my house. Still, if they would not get peace then what can I do? We have no objection with whatever they want to investigate against us," Tejashwi said. "Lalan Singh, the national president of JD-U, rightly pointed out that we have nothing to hide and we are not afraid of central agencies.

Nitish Kumar, a socialist leader of Bihar, was elected as the chief minister for the eighth time. Kumar, a product of the political school of Karpoori Thakur and Jayaprakash Narayan was influenced by the socialist ideology of these two great leaders of Bihar. He was influenced by the social justice and making of a Samata Mulak Samaj ideology of Karpoori Thakur and also participated in the Sampoorna Kranti movement in 1977 led by Jayaprakash Narayan.

The NCP supremo also accused the BJP of "finishing off its regional allies" after tying up with them to grab power, referring to the recent developments concerning the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra, earlier with the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and now the latest with the Janata Dal (U) in Bihar. "The BJP's speciality is to join hands with a regional party during elections, but ensure that the local ally wins fewer seats.