Nitish Kumar is back where he was in July 2022: with the BJP. He remains Bihar’s Chief Minister, but he now has two new deputies, both from the BJP, in place of his long-time buddy Sushil Kumar Modi, who has gone on to become a Rajya Sabha MP after Nitish Kumar left the BJP and rejoined the Mahagathbandhan in August 2022.
After taking his ninth oath as Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar assured reporters, “We are going to stay together now.”
“You all know how I came to this (Mahagathbandhan) alliance and also how I worked to bring together so many parties. But of late things were not working well. It was not going down well with those in my party as well,” Nitish Kumar, 72, said.
BJP leaders Samrat Choudhary and Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha have been designated Deputy Chief Ministers.
“I was with them (NDA) earlier too. We went on different paths, but now we are together and will remain so. Today, eight people have taken oath as ministers; the rest will take oath soon. Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha have been appointed Deputy Chief Ministers,” Nitish Kumar told reporters.
When asked about outgoing Deputy Chief Minister and Lalu Yadav’s son Tejashwi Yadav’s comment that “JD(U) will be finished in 2024”, Nitish Kumar said his party will work for the development and progress of the state.
“… We will keep doing the same, nothing else. Tejashwi was not doing anything. Now I came back to where I was (NDA) and now there is no question of going anywhere else,” he added.
Ministers in Nitish Kumar Cabinet
- JD(U)- Vijay Kumar Choudhary
- JD(U)- Vijendra Yadav
- JD(U)- Shravan Kumar
- BJP- Prem Kumar
- HAM- Santosh Kumar Suman
- Sumit Kumar Singh (Independent)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Nitish Kumar and his two deputies, saying the newly sworn-in National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leadership in Bihar will go to whatever length to promote the state’s development and meet the expectations of its people.
No politician from Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Bihar’s single-largest party, attended the oath-taking event.
Tejashwi Yadav stated that the JD(U) will be “destroyed” in the 2019 assembly election. “The game is not over for us. The game has just begun,” the young leader said.
Nitish Kumar had expressed dissatisfaction with both the Mahagathbandhan in the state and the recently formed Opposition bloc INDIA.
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