New Delhi: The newly elected Bihar government on Friday issued a notification regarding the allocation of portfolios to its ministers, who had taken oath a day before. Interestingly, for the first time in almost 20 years, the home portfolio has been allotted to the BJP. The portfolio, which the chief minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar had kept with him, is now given to his deputy and BJP leader Samrat Chowdhury. Another deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha has been given the revenue and land reforms and mines & geology departments.
The chief minister has kept the general administration department, Cabinet secretariat and vigilance portfolios with himself.
The finance portfolio, which was with the BJP in the last government, has been given to the JD(U). Senior leader Bijendra Prasad Yadav has become the minister of finance and commercial tax departments, the notification said.
While senior JD(U) leader Shrowan Kumar has been given portfolios of rural development and transport departments, his party colleague Ashok Chowdhary got the rural works department portfolio.
JD(U) leader Vijay Chowdhary has been given the portfolios of building construction, water resources and parliamentary affairs, while his party colleague Madan Sahni now holds charge of the social welfare department. The lone Muslim minister in the state government, Jama Khan, has been given the minority welfare. His party colleague Sunil Kumar has been allotted the education department.
BJP's Mangal Pandey has been given the health department and the law department. His party colleague and also the state unit chief of the party Dilip Jaiswal has been given the industries department.
A new face in the government, the BJP's Shreyasi Singh has been given the sports and information and technology portfolios, while Arun Shankar Prasad got the tourism department. Another BJP leader Sanjay Tiger has been given the labour resources department.
Deepak Prakash of the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party and HAM(S)'s Santosh Suman have been given the panchayati raj department and water resources department, respectively.
LJP(RV)'s Sanjay Kumar and Sanjay Kumar Singh have been allotted the sugarcane and public health engineering departments, respectively.
Earlier in the day, LJP(RV) chief Chirag Paswan dismissed speculation regarding his party lobbying for the deputy CM's post. Mr Paswan, who was in Patna, claimed that he did not wish to come across as "greedy" by demanding any post. He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allocating two berths to his party in the new council of ministers.
Mr Paswan said that he wishes to expand his party's footprints beyond Bihar as "an NDA partner" in states like West Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
“In 2021, there was not one person around me. My party was split... And in 2024, Mr Modi put faith in the party and gave us five seats to contest in the Lok Sabha polls. We won all five seats. If I now ask for something from the alliance, then no one will be more greedy than me,” Mr Paswan replied to a media query.
