Patna: The much-awaited Bihar cabinet expansion took place Tuesday when 17 more ministers were sworn in — nine from the BJP and eight from JD(U).
This takes the total ministerial strength in the Bihar government to 31 (including the chief minister) — 13 from the JD(U), 16 from the BJP, and one each from the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).
The key new faces include the BJP national spokesperson BJP Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and former IPS officer Sunil Kumar — a St Stephen College alumni from the JD(U).
While the JDU relied mainly on old faces it was the BJP which went ahead with fresh faces and only Promod Kumar who was in the previous ministry managed to make it back to the ministry.
BJP plays its caste hand
The expansion Tuesday showed that the BJP has taken caste considerations into account. Having already installed an OBC (Tarkishore Prasad) and an EBC (Renu Devi), the BJP has accommodated four upper castes in the expansion.
The BJP has brought in Nitin Navin, an upper caste Kayastha who had defeated Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv Sinha in Patna’s Bankipur assembly seat. It’s been three decades since Bihar had a minister from the Kayastha community.
The party also inducted a minister (Samrat Choudhary) from the Kushwaha community, the second largest in OBC group.
For the first time in Bihar the party has also sent feeders to the Muslim population with the anointment of Shahnawaz Hussain. The BJP is also looking at Hussain to counter Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The JD(U), meanwhile, has remained status quoist in its approach, reluctant to bring in new players for caste arithmetics. It has given two berths to Rajputs, one to Brahmin and has a Kurmi, a Dalit, an EBC a Muslim and a Kushwaha in its ranks.
New faces for BJP, JD(U) sticks to old guns
While the BJP has retained only Pramod Kumar from the previous NDA government, Nitish Kumar has accommodated most of his old loyalists.
They include Sanjay Jha, a former Arun Jaitley loyalist who has been close to Nitish for over a decade now, and Srawan Kumar, a seven-time MLA from Nalanda district who is the chief minister’s go-to man on issues of floor management in the assembly, handling defections or holding talks with other parties.
The new JD(U) faces inducted Tuesday include former IPS officer Sunil Kumar and Jayant Raj. In all, the JD(U) has only three first-time ministers among the 13 it has in the cabinet.
The BJP, however, has continued with its policy of searching for new leaders. It has already eased out former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and has left others of the old guard, such as Nand Kishor Yadav, out in the cold.
Among those the party has brought in is Neeraj Kumar Bablu, the MLA from Chhatapur in Saharsa district from 2005. Bablu is the cousin of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput and is now a prominent Rajput face from the flood-hit Kosi region.
JD(U) keeps plum posts
Despite the BJP putting pressure on Nitish for some more important departments, the chief minister has refused to oblige.
Even Shahnawaz Hussain has been handed the industry department, which has nothing much to speak for itself in Bihar. The BJP’s Nitin Navin has been handed the road construction department, while Vijay Choudhary is the education minister and Samrat Choudhary is the panchayati raj minister.
The old JD(U) guard has retained key portfolios such as rural development, education and water resources. Former IPS officer Sunil Kumar has been given excise and prohibition in the dry state.
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