New Delhi: In Bihar, 31 ministers were sworn in on Tuesday as Nitish Kumar expanded his cabinet days after he took oath with his new deputy Tejashwi Yadav. Among the newly appointed ministers are 16 from the RJD. Nitish’s JD(U) has 11 ministers in the new cabinet, with two ministers from the Congress. Tej Pratap Yadav, brother of Tejashwi Yadav and elder son of Lalu Yadav, was also sworn in on Tuesday.
Tej Pratap Yadav, RJD leader and brother of Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, takes oath as a minister in the Bihar cabinet. #BiharCabinetExpansion pic.twitter.com/68zpjRUuPO
— ANI (@ANI) August 16, 2022
Nitish 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–RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav – took oath on August 10.
Janata Dal (United) on August 9 unanimously decided to snap ties with the BJP and Nitish Kumar’s party joined hands with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in a stunning switch of power.
It was in 2020 when the BJP- JD(U) combined won the Assembly election for Bihar and Nitish Kumar was made the chief minister, despite BJP being the single largest party.
CM Nitish Kumar had deserted the NDA for the first time in 2013 after Narendra Modi became the coalition’s Prime Ministerial candidate and then again ditched his coalition with the RJD-Congress combine in 2017 to walk back into the NDA camp.
What began as a tiff between the two partners ended up in a full-blown split after Nitish Kumar accused the BJP of trying to split his party and suspected former union minister and JD(U) leader RCP Singh to be in cahoots with the saffron camp. Singh, once a close aide of Nitish Kumar, soon resigned over charges of corruption and admitted that joining the BJP was an option.
