New Bihar ministers get portfolios, some others get fresh responsibilities

Patna: Portfolios were allocated to all the seven new ministers in Bihar on Thursday and many other members of the state cabinet, including a Deputy Chief Minister, also got fresh responsibilities.

All but one of the ministers getting new responsibilities belong to BJP, the alliance partner of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The BJP has 21 members in the state’s 36-strong cabinet upon expansion on Wednesday.

According to a notification of the cabinet secretariat department, Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha has been stripped of the crucial road construction department, which has now gone to Nitin Nabin, who would hand over the law department to Mangal Pandey. Sinha retains mines and geology, besides getting the additional charge of agriculture, which was earlier with Pandey.

Health is retained by Pandey.

Santosh Kumar Suman, the son of Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi who heads Hindustani Awam Morcha, retains minor water resources though Information Technology and Disaster Management have gone to new inductees Krishna Kumar Mantu and Vijay Kumar Mandal respectively.

Nitish Mishra retains industry but hands over tourism to another new inductee Raju Kumar Singh.

Prem Kumar retains cooperatives but the environment, forestry and climate change department goes to another new entrant Sunil Kumar. Sanjay Saraogi, a multiple-term vocal MLA who is having his first shot at the cabinet, gets revenue and land reforms. The revenue and land reforms department was held until Wednesday by state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal, who quit hours before the cabinet expansion citing the party’s policy of “one person one post”. Jibesh Kumar, who was a minister from 2020 to 2022 but had to wait till Wednesday to get a re-entry, seems to have been rewarded for his patience with the plum department of urban development and housing, which was until now with Nitin Nabin.