Patna: Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record 10th time at Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan on Thursday. Altogether 26 Cabinet Ministers took oath, out of which 14 are from BJP, 8 from JD(U), 2 from LJP (RV), and one each from HAM (S) and RLM.
Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha took oath as the Deputy Chief Ministers of the state.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda, and several other top leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Chief ministers of several other NDA-ruled states also attended the event.
Nitish Kumar had resigned as the Bihar Chief Minister this week and then staked claim before Governor Arif Mohammed Khan to form the new government. Apart from the Cabinet berths for the main NDA constituents, the BJP and JD(U), the other partners of the alliance were also likely to get one ministerial post for every six MLAs to ensure a balanced representation.
The swearing-in ceremony comes nearly a week after the NDA retained Bihar with a thumping mandate, winning 202 seats in the 243-member Assembly, with the BJP bagging 89, JD(U) 85, LJP(RV) 19, HAM 5 and RLM 4.
Nitish Kumar first became the Chief Minister in 2000, but his debut term lasted only seven days as he failed to secure a majority. He returned to power after the 2005 and 2010 Assembly elections, when the NDA secured a majority win in Bihar.
