‘Bihar cabinet expansion soon, Congress to get one more berth’

Congress, a key constituent of the ruling alliance in the state with 19 legislators in the 243-member Bihar assembly.

Bihar’s deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who had recently dismissed talks of state cabinet expansion “any time soon”, said Thursday that the Congress would get one more ministerial berth.

Vihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. (PTI)

“Congress would get one more ministerial berth. This was decided and announced earlier,” Yadav told reporters in Patna after returning from New Delhi Thursday afternoon.

Congress, a key constituent of the ruling alliance in the state with 19 legislators in the 243-member Bihar assembly, currently has two ministers and its state unit president Akhilesh Prasad Singh has been making demanding two more berths.

The current strength of the state cabinet is 29, of which 14 ministers are from Yadav’s party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), 11 from chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JD-U), two from Congress, one from HAM(S) of former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi and one Independent.

Three Left parties support the government from the outside. “It is up to them to decide whether they would join the government or not,” Yadav said.

When the current government was formed in August last year, RJD had 16 ministers, of which two — Sudhakar Singh and Kartikaya Singh — have resigned since then.

The permissible limit for the number of ministers in the state is 36.

Meanwhile, CM Kumar also said today that the cabinet would be expanded soon. “There are only a few vacancies in the state cabinet created after some had to leave the cabinet, and maybe one more. We will fill up the vacancies any time after talks with allies,” he said on the sidelines of a government event in Patna where he was flanked by Yadav.

A few days back, Kumar, when pressed on the issue of cabinet expansion, had told reporters to “ask the deputy CM”.

State Congress chief Singh, who had also demanded formation of a co-ordination committee in the ruling alliance, was not immediately available for comment.

State Congress spokesperson Rajesh Rathore said, “Decisions on cabinet berths and related matters are always taken at the level by state Congress president and the party’s high command.”

Meanwhile, deputy CM Yadav said his recent meeting with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in the national capital was a courtesy call and they discussed various political matters and current situation in the country.

Yadav said his father and ailing RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who has returned to Delhi after a kidney transplant in Singapore, was keeping well and taking all precautions.