Bihar Cabinet expansion likely to take place today

There is no official announcement yet but the long-pending Cabinet expansion in Bihar is likely to take place on Tuesday, according to sources. Nine ministers from the BJP, including MLC and former Union minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, and eight from the JD(U) are likely to be sworn in, according to Raj Bhavan sources.

There are 15 ministers, including CM Nitish Kumar, in the Bihar government at present.

According to sources, other probable candidates from BJP are Bankipur MLA Nitin Navin, Digha MLA Sanjeev Choursia, ex-ministers and MLAs from Champaran belt Pramod Kumar and Rana Randhir Singh, Subhash Singh from Gopalganj, MLC Samrat Choudhary from Munger, Krishna Kum Rishi from Purnea, Sanjay Singh from Vaishali, Nitish Mishra from Mithilanchal belt, Sanjay Saroagi from Darbhanga and Bhagirathi Devi from West Champaran. From JD(U), those likely to be inducted are former ministers Sanjay Jha (Darbhanga), Shravan Kumar (Nalanda) and Lesi Singh (Purnea). They also include Jayant Raj (Banka), Madan Sahni (Darbhanga), Dhirendra Pratap Singh (Valmiki Nagar), ex- ADGP Sunil Kumar (Gopalganj) and Jama Khan.