Bihar Cabinet Portfolio Allocation: CM Nitish Kumar Keeps Home, Deputy Samrat Gets Finance, Health & Sports

Portfolios were allocated in the new Bihar cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who retained Home department, while giving away finance, health, sports held by his JD(U), to new ally BJP.

Bihar cabinet portfolio allocation: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday allocated portfolios to his newly-inducted new Cabinet ministers. While he retained the Home Department, he allocated nine ministries including Finance, Health, Sports Departments to Deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary. His another deputy, Vijay Kumar Sinha also gets nine departments including Agriculture and Road Construction.

According to an official notification besides home, which helps the CM maintain control over the state police, Kumar has also retained key departments like cabinet secretariat, election, vigilance, general administration and “all other portfolios not allocated to anyone else”.

The JD(U) president on January 28 took oath as Chief Minister of Bihar for a record ninth time, ditching the Mahagathbandhan and the opposition bloc INDIA and forming a new government with the BJP, which he had dumped less than 18 months ago.

Bihar cabinet portfolio allocation | CM Nitish Kumar keeps Home Department; Deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary gets Finance, Health, Sports Departments; Deputy CM Vijay Sinha gets Agriculture. pic.twitter.com/beT2L3Ptkt

— ANI (@ANI) February 3, 2024

State BJP chief Samrat Choudhary, who has become a Deputy Chief Minister, has got finance, a portfolio that his party has always held whenever it has shared power with the JD(U) supremo. Earlier, when Kumar was running a government with the ‘Mahagathbandhan’, comprising Congress, RJD, the health, finance department was held by the JD(U).

Besides finance, health and sports, Deputy Samrat Choudhary has been given commercial tax, urban development and housing, panchayati raj, animal husbandry and fisheries and law. Choudhary’s party colleague Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is also a Deputy CM, has been given agriculture, road construction, revenue and land reforms, mining and geology, sugarcane, labour resources, art, culture and youth affairs, minor water resources and public health engineering department, the notification said.

Senior BJP leader Prem Kumar, who is only the third BJP leader to have been inducted into the nine-member cabinet formed last Sunday, has got cooperatives, OBC and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare, disaster management, tourism and environment and climate change.

JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Chaudhary has retained parliamentary affairs, besides getting water resources, transport, building construction, education and information and public resources department.

Veteran JD(U) leader Bijendra Yadav, whom Kumar often credits for transforming the power sector in the state, has retained the department, besides getting excise and prohibition, planning and development, rural works and minority welfare.

JD(U) leader Shravan Kumar has retained rural welfare besides getting social welfare and food and consumer affairs.

Santosh Kumar Suman of the Hindustani Awam Morcha has got SC and ST welfare and Information Technology.

Independent MLA Sumit Kumar Singh, who has remained loyal towards the CM during his numerous switchovers in the last four years, has retained science, technology and technical education.