Nitish Kumar sworn in as Bihar CM for 10th time; 26 MLAs take oath as ministers

In the recently held polls, the NDA stormed back to power in the eastern state, winning 202 seats in the 243-member assembly

Janata Dal United (JD-U) convenor Nitish Kumar on Thursday was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar for a record 10th time at the Gandhi Maidan. Governor Arif Mohammad Khan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Nitish.

In all, 26 ministers were sworn in at the event (PTI photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda, union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Anupriya Patel, Giriraj Singh, Nityanand Rai were among those present at the oath-taking ceremony.

After Nitish, Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, who are tipped to retain their position as Deputy CMs, and 24 other ministers - eight from JD-U, 14 from the BJP, two from LJP-R and one each from HAM-S and RLM- took oath in batches of six. Nine other cabinet berths will be filled later on.

Six senior ministers of the previous Nitish cabinet took oath in the first batch which included Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Shrawan Kumar, Mangal Pandey, Dilip Kumar Jaiswal and Ashok Choudhary.

Several old faces, including the lone Muslim face Jama Khan, have been retained in the Nitish cabinet, while the new faces include Ramkripal Yadav, Shreyashi Singh, Rama Nishad, Sanjay Singh Tiger, Arun Shankar Prasad, Lakhendra Prasad Roshan, Narayan Prasad, Sanjay Kumar, Sanjay Kumar Singh (both LJP-R) and Deepak Prakash (RLM).

Deepak Prakash is the son of Upendra Kushwaha and is not a member of either Bihar Legislative Assembly or Bihar Legislative Council. He is tipped to be sent to the Bihar Legislative Council. The lone cabinet berth to HAM-S has gone to Santosh Kumar Suman, who was a minister in the previous Nitish cabinet also.

There are only three women in the Nitish cabinet. Former minister Leshi Singh and new entrants Shreyashi Singh and Rama Nishad - and one Muslim are the new ministers. Nishad is the first MLA from Aurai seat.