Nitish Kumar declares portfolios, keeps Home for himself

The new Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, on Tuesday declared portfolios of his 14-member council of ministers while keeping the home portfolio for himself.

Also read: BJP asserts itself in Bihar with a bit of social mechanics, to have 2 Dy CMs

Nitish Kumar and his cabinet of ministers were sworn in by governor Phagu Chauhan on Monday in Patna. Two Deputy Chief Ministers — Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi — both from the Bharatiya Janata Party also took the oath of office the same day.

The ministries earlier handled by deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi have been passed to Tarkishore Prasad, including finance, while Renu Devi would get women development.

Also read: Profile: Nitish spurned govt job for politics; deputies rose through the ranks

The ministers and their portfolios:

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will handling home, general administration, vigilance, election, and other departments not distributed to any minister on Tuesday.

Deputy Chief Minister Tarkishore Prasad (BJP) has been given finance, commercial taxes, environment and forest, information technology, disaster management, and urban development.

The other Deputy Chief Minister, Renu Devi (BJP), will be in charge of Panchayati Raj, Backward Caste Uplift, Extremely Backward Class Welfare, and Industry.

Vijay Kumar Chaudhary (JDU) has been allotted rural engineering, rural development, water resources, information and broadcasting, and parliamentary affairs.

Bijendra Prasad Yadav (BJP) has got energy, prohibition, planning, food and consumer affairs.

The other ministers and their portfolios are: Mewalal Choudhary (JDU) – education; Shiela Kumari (BJP) – transport; Santosh Kumar Suman (HAM, the son of party founder Jitan Ram Manjhi) – minor irrigation and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe welfare; Mukesh Sahni (Vikassheel Insaan Party) – animal husbandry and fisheries; Mangal Pandey (BJP) – health, road, and art and culture; Amrendra Pratap Singh (BJP) – agriculture, cooperatives, and sugar cane; Rampreet Paswan (BJP) – public health engineering; Jivesh Misra – tourism, mines, and labour; and Ram Surat Rai (BJP) – revenue and law.