Janata Dal- United (JD-U) chief Nitish Kumar on Monday took oath as chief minister of Bihar for the seventh time. On Tuesday, the new Cabinet met in Patna to give its nod to a five-day session of the bicameral Bihar legislature from November 23. The state cabinet approved the Parliamentary Affairs Department’s proposal to convene the first session of the 17th assembly and 196th session of the legislative council from November 23 to November 27.
JD(U) ministers included Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Ashok Choudhary, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Mewa Lal Chaudhary, and Sheela Kumari Mandal. Other than the two Deputy CM designates, the other BJP leaders who took oath as ministers on Monday were Mangal Pandey, Amarendra Pratap Singh, Ramprit Paswan, Jibesh Kumar, and Ram Surat Rai.
Here’s the full list of cabinet ministers with their allocated departments:
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar – Home, General Administration, Cabinet, Vigilance, election and all other departments which are not distributed to any minister.
Nitish Kumar has become the longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar at the age of 69. Kumar is the member of Janata Dal (United) and has held the post of the chief minister for 15 consecutive years now.
Tarkishore Prasad Singh – Finance, Commercial taxes, Environment and forest, Information Technology, Disaster Management, Urban Development.
Renu Devi – Panchayati Raj, Backward caste upliftment and EBC welfare, Industry
Vijay Chaudhary – Rural Engineering Department, Rural Development Department, Water Resources, Information and Broadcasting, Parliamentary Affairs
Bijendra Yadav – Energy, Prohibition, Planning, Food and Consumer Affairs
Mewa Lal Choudhary – Education
Sheila Mandal – Transport
Santos Kumar Suman – Minor Irrigation, SC/ST welfare
Mukesh Sahni – Animal Husbandry and Fishery
Mangal Pandey – Health, Road and Art and culture
Amrendra Singh – Agriculture, Cooperative
Jivesh Mishra – Tourism, Labour, Mines
Ram Surat Rai – Revenue, Law
Rampreet Paswan – Public Health Engineering Department
As per the rule, Bihar can have a maximum of 36 ministers including the Chief Minister. The rule says the number of Ministers in the state shall not exceed 15% of the Assembly’s total strength. In the case of Bihar, the Legislative Assembly has 243 seats.
