Bihar Deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav finds ‘supporters’ in JD (U)

Overseen by Governor Ram Nath Kovind, Nitish Kumar – dressed in his usual white kurta pyjama – took oath of office and secrecy in the name of God in Hindi at the sprawling Gandhi Maidan here.

According to JD-U leaders, Nitish Kumar will take oath at the head of a 36-member council of ministers.

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu represented Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the event. One joke read, “If you hate your job, think about IAS officers, who will be reporting to a 9th standard pass deputy CM… and they can’t even change their jobs”.

All arrangements have been made for the function at the Gandhi Maidan at 2 PM, Patna Divisional Commissioner Anand Kishore, who is supervising the arrangements, said.

Nitish Kumar had invited Modi to the event.

The opposition BJP which had launched a strong attack on RJD president and Tejaswi”s father, Lalu Prasad Yadav during the election campaign and suffered electorally because of it, also stayed away from attacking Tejaswi”. His elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav will look after health and environment departments. “Corruption will not be tolerated”, the new deputy chief minister of Bihar stated.

Senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui was given the crucial finance portfolio.

Vijay Choudhary, considered close to Nitish, was being tipped as a contender for the Speaker’s post.

On Sunday, the Janata Dal-United described the younger son of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav as someone with a bright future who should be given time to prove himself on the political front.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, D Raja of CPI, whose parties contested against the JD(U) led combine and but are anti-BJP in nature, and MK Stalin of the DMK have also confirmed their participation.

Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan, Bijendra Yadav, Shrawan Kumar and Jay Kumar Singh were Ministers in the previous Nitish government.

Madan Mohan Jha: The Congress leader has been allotted the revenue portfolio.

The RJD, JD(U) and Congress have 80, 71 and 27 MLAs respectively in the 243-member House.”Nitish trusts Chaudhary and even when he was in the cabinet he held very important departments”. There will be 16 RJD ministers, 15 from the JD-U and five from the Congress in the government.