Santosh, Samrat and Sumit: List of New Faces in Nitish Kumar's Cabinet

Bihar Politics News:  Eight ministers, including two Deputy Chief Ministers, took oath along with Nitish Kumar on Sunday. After severing ties with RJD, Nitish Kumar took oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record 9th time. While Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha became his Deputies, six other ministers were also inducted into his new cabinet. Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) President Chirag Paswan also attended Nitish Kumar's oath-taking ceremony as an NDA ally.   

List of ministers inducted in Nitish Kumar's cabinet today:-

• Samrat Choudhary (Deputy CM) 
• Vijay Kumar Sinha (Deputy CM) 
• Dr Prem Kumar (BJP)
• Vijendra Yadav (JDU)
• Vijay Chaudhary (JDU)
• Shravan Kumar (JDU)
• Santosh Suman (HAM)
• Sumit Singh (Independent)

Nitish Kumar had joined the 'Mahagathbandhan' in August 2022, after severing ties with the BJP, accusing it of trying to 'split' his Janata Dal (United). He had formed a new government with a multi-party coalition that included the RJD, the Congress and three Left parties.

Dubbing him as "Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram", the Congress said there are many people like him in the country. The expression was used widely in politics in the 90s referring to the frequent floor-crossing and switching of parties.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said they already knew about Kumar's decision to leave the alliance, but had not said anything to help keep the INDIA bloc together.

"There are many people like 'Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram' in the country. Earlier he and I were fighting together. When I talked to (RJD chief) Lalu (Prasad) ji and (his son) Tejashwi (Yadav) ji, they also said that Nitish is going," he said.

The Congress president said if Kumar wanted to stay, he would have stayed.

"Therefore, we already knew this, but we did not say anything to keep the INDIA bloc intact. If we say something wrong, a wrong message will go out. Lalu Prasad Yadav ji and Tejashwi Yadav ji had already given us this information. Today, it has become true," Kharge said.

After severing ties with the BJP in 2022, Kumar embarked on a drive to bring together all parties across the country to take on the BJP and that culminated in the formation of the opposition bloc INDIA.

Lashing out at Kumar, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said it is clear that a "political drama" is being created in order to divert attention from the party's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.