CM Nitish to hold maiden meeting of his new cabinet today

Now that RJD chief Lalu Prasad has accommodated both his sons, Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejhashwi Prasad Yadav in the Nitish Kumar ministry and in fact, the younger son is deputy CM, one question in everyone’s mind is this-can Lalu Prasad surprise political pundits and commoners and for how long?

Former JD(U) state President Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Shrawan Kumar and Jay Kumar Singh, all members of the outgoing cabinet also took oath besides former MP Maheshwar Hazari, Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma, Santosh Nirala and Khurshid alias Firoz Ahmad.

Tejaswi Yadav is the son of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Yadav, whose conviction in a corruption case has meant that he can not contest elections.

There will be 16 ministers from the RJD, 15 from the JD-U and five from the Congress in the new government.

A day after Lalu Yadav’s son Tejashwi Yadav was appointed Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, he was at the receiving end of criticism across different platforms including opposition parties and social media alike.

Also expected to attend the event are B.R. Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar and reputed Supreme court lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who along with Mamata Banerjee and Kejriwal repeatedly urged voters in Bihar to defeat the BJP.

Mahagathbandhan won 178 seats out 243 seats in Bihar (2/3 seats).

Some allies of BJP Akali Dal Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal (Akali Dal) and Ram Das Kadam and Subhash Desai (Shiv Sena) were also present. Nitish Kumar did so in 2010, when he had an alliance with the BJP.

RJP got a total of 80 seats in the Bihar election 2015.

Apart from Mr. Kumar, the Ministry includes 12 members each from the JD (U) and RJD and four from the Congress. While Tejashwi gave a splendid performance in reading out the pledge at the oath ceremony of Friday, elder brother Tej Pratap’s fumble made a bad statement for the new government.

It is the fifth time engineer-turned-politician Nitish Kumar was sworn-in as the chief minister.

From Congress party – Ashok Choudhary, Madan Mohan Jha, Abdul Jalil Mastan, Awdesh Kumar Singh.

Dressed in his usual white kurta pyjama, the chief minister took the oath of office and secrecy in the name of God at an event billed as the first major show of strength by non-BJP parties since Narendra Modi became the prime minister previous year.