With alliance partners, the BJP and the Janata Dal (United), deciding to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on an equal number of seats in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is expected to expand his Cabinet soon to accommodate leaders from the extremely backward and backward castes.
The buzz in political circles in the State is that a Rashtriya Lok Samata Party leader could be inducted into the Cabinet to smooth ruffled feathers. RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha, who after meeting with Bihar incharge of BJP Bhupendra Yadav in Delhi on Tuesday, had said that as an NDA partner he was ready to accept losses [in the number of seats for the upcoming LS polls] but wanted to know why his party was being denied the benefits of an NDA government in Bihar.
The Cabinet presently has 28 Ministers, including the Chief Minister, but its strength can go up to 36 as the State Assembly has 243 members. In July 2017, when Mr. Kumar parted ways with the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led grand alliance and joined hands with the BJP again, the other allies — the RLSP, the Lok Janshakti Party and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) — were offered one ministerial berth each in the Cabinet.
The LJP made State party chief Pashupati Kumar Paras the Animal Husbandry Minister, but HAM(S) rejected the offer and later switched to the RJD-led grand alliance. Mr. Kushwaha wants loyalist party MLA Sudhanshu Kumar to be inducted into the Cabinet, but party sources told The Hindu that the Chief Minister was eager to take another RLSP MLA, Lallan Paswan, who has been critical of Mr. Kushwaha, into the Cabinet.
The long-time political bitterness between Mr. Kumar and Mr. Kushwaha has been an open secret in Bihar.
“So now in the changed political situation, Mr. Kumar may include RLSP leader Sudhanshu Kumar in the Cabinet under pressure from BJP top leadership to keep Mr. Kushwaha in the NDA with seats being offered to him for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” a senior State BJP leader told The Hindu. Besides, Mr. Kumar has an eye on the extremely backward class and women voters and would like to maintain a “social balance” in his Cabinet.
A woman legislator is also likely to get a ministerial berth. After Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma’s resignation in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, there is no woman Minister in the Cabinet.
Sources in the ruling JD(U) said that along with former Congress leader Ashok Choudhary, who had joined the JD(U) after being removed from the post of State party president last year, the name of another JD(U) leader, Shyam Rajak, is said to be in contention for a ministerial berth.