Bihar Govt Gives Home Portfolio to BJP After 20 Years

New Delhi: The newly elected Bihar government on Friday issued a notification regarding portfolio allocation to its ministers who were sworn in a day ago. Interestingly, for the first time in almost 20 years, the housing portfolio has been allocated to the BJP. The portfolio held by Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar has now been given to his deputy and BJP leader Samrat Chowdhury. Another deputy CM, Vijay Kumar Sinha, was given revenue and land reforms and mines and geology departments.

The Prime Minister retained the general administration department, the Cabinet secretariat and the oversight portfolios.

The finance portfolio, which was held by the BJP in the last government, was given to the JD(U). The notification stated that senior leader Bijendra Prasad Yadav is the minister of finance and commercial tax departments.

While senior JD(U) leader Shrowan Kumar was given portfolios of rural development and transport departments, his party colleague Ashok Chowdhary got the portfolio of rural affairs department.

While JD(U) leader Vijay Chowdhary has been given portfolios of building construction, water resources and parliamentary affairs, his party colleague Madan Sahni now takes charge of the social welfare department. Jama Khan, the only Muslim minister in the state government, was given minority welfare. His party colleague Sunil Kumar has been assigned the education department.

BJP’s Mangal Pandey was given the health department and legal department. His party colleague and also the party’s state unit chief Dilip Jaiswal has been assigned the industries department.

While BJP’s Shreyasi Singh, the new face of the government, was given sports, information and technology portfolios, Arun Shankar Prasad got the tourism department. Another BJP leader Sanjay Tiger has been assigned the manpower resources department.

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party’s Deepak Prakash and HAM(S)’s Santosh Suman were given panchayati raj department and water resources department respectively.

Sanjay Kumar and Sanjay Kumar Singh of LJP(RV) have been appointed in sugarcane and public health engineering departments respectively.

Earlier in the day, LJP(RV) chief Chirag Paswan dismissed speculations that his party was lobbying for the deputy CM post. Mr. Paswan, who is in Patna, claimed that he did not want to appear “greedy” by demanding any post. He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for reserving two seats for his party in the new cabinet.

Mr. Paswan said his party wants to expand its footprint beyond Bihar by becoming an “NDA partner” in states like West Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

“In 2021, there was not a single person around me. My party was divided… And in 2024, Mr. Modi trusted the party and gave us five seats to contest in the Lok Sabha elections. We won all the five seats. Now if I want something from the alliance, then no one can be more greedy than me,” Mr. Paswan replied to a media query.