Patna, Nov 20 (UNI) Nitish Kumar, veteran leader from socialist background and a staunch follower of Jayaprakash Narayan — considered a crusader of democracy in the country — today took oath as Chief Minister of Bihar on the 10th occasion, making history. Governor Arif Mohammad Khan administered oath to Kumar.
It was the tenth occasion that Kumar was administered oath of Chief Minister since March 2000 when he became CM for the first time. Kumar, however, had resigned within seven days as CM following his failure to muster a majority in the state Assembly. He returned as chief minister in 2005, heading the NDA government and largely remained in office since then, except for a brief period of nearly 10 months (2014-2015) when Jeetan Ram Manjhi was the CM.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda were present to witness the historic event.
Top BJP leaders had refrained from asserting during the poll campaign that Nitish Kumar would become CM again if NDA was voted to power after the elections. Results of assembly polls with increased JD(U) tally from 43 to 85 created circumstances for BJP to accept Nitish Kumar as CM for yet another term.
Besides Kumar, a total of 26 Ministers were administered oath and 14 of them are from BJP, 8 from JD(U), 2 from LJP(RV) and one each from HAM and RLM.
Among others who were also administered oath as Ministers are Samrat Chaudhary, Vijay Kumar Sinha, Mangal Pandey, Dr Dilip Kumar Jaiswal, Nitin Naveen, Ram Kripal Yadav, Sanjay Singh Tiger, Arun Shankar Prasad, Surendra Mehta, Narayan Prasad, Rama Nishad, Lakhendra Kumar Roshan, Shrayashi Singh and Dr Pramod Kumar Chadravashi– all from BJP.
From JD(U) are Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Bijender Prasad Yadav, Shrawan Kumar, Ashok Chaudhary, Lasy Singh, Madan Sahni, Sunil Kumar and Mohammad Jama Khan.
Chirag Paswan’s LJP (RV) was represented in the ministry by Sanjay Kumar and Sanjay Kumar Singh. From HAM is Deepak Prakash and from RLM is Santosh Kumar Suman.
The NDA won 202 seats in the just concluded Bihar assembly elections. Among NDA constituents, BJP won 89 seats, JD(U) 85 , LJP(RV) 19, HAM 5 and RLM 4 seats.
On the other hand, the RJD-led Grand Alliance managed to get only 35 seats. In 2020 Bihar elections, NDA constituents BJP won 74 seats, JD(U) 43, HAM 4 and VIP 4 seats. The HAM was part of NDA in 2020 elections and had later joined Grand Alliance following difference with NDA leadership.
