Nitish becomes ‘HOMELESS’

Nitish Kumar keeps core administrative departments with himself

- 

MPOST BUREAU PATNA: After posting a landslide victory in last week’s assembly election and taking oath as Chief Minister for a record 10th time, Janata Dal (U) supremo Nitish Kumar surrendered the crucial Home Ministry portfolio to NDA partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Samrat Choudhary who also returned as his deputy. Nitish Kumar had kept the Home portfolio with him all through his nearly 20-year-long tenure. Letting go of the Home Ministry also indicates the start of a post-Nitish Bihar political scene, with the 57-year-old Samrat Choudhary, emerging powerful and possibly being groomed to take over in the future. Vijay Sinha, the other BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister, has been given the Revenue and Mines ministries in an allotment of portfolios confirmed on Friday night. BJP leaders were also given the critical Agriculture (Ram Kripal Yadav), Backward Classes Welfare (Rama Nishad), Disaster Management (Narayan Prasad), Industries (Dilip Jaiswal), and Labour (Sanjay Singh Tiger) posts.

And ex-Bihar BJP boss Mangal Pandey has been given a double charge Health and Law.

Other posts given to the BJP are Road and Housing (Nitin Nabin), SC & ST Welfare (Lakhendra Raushan), Tourism (Arun Shankar Prasad), IT and Sports (Shreyasi Singh), Fisheries and Animal Resources (Surendra Mehata), and Environment and Climate Change (Pramod Kumar).