With picks, Nitish-Tejashwi revive Lalu’s tried-&-tested M-Y formula | India News

PATNA: Nitish retained home, general administration and cabinet secretariat portfolios while JD(U) got 11 of 31 cabinet slots in the ministry expansion, maintaining status quo in representation as the party had 12 berths (counting the CM) in the last NDA government. Congress got two and one each went to HAM-S and an Independent legislator. Three berths were left vacant for potential defections from the opposition or to accommodate the Left parties, should they decide to join the government, sources said.
Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav got the health, road construction, rural works and urban development portfolios, all of which hog a bulk of budgetary allocations.

Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder brother of Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi, got the environment, forest and climate change portfolio in the state’s cabinet expansion on Tuesday. Tej Pratap had handled the health portfolio during his curtailed ministerial stint in the first Mahagathbandhan government in 2015. That berth was kept by Tejashwi this time around.
In terms of caste and community arithmetic, there are eight Yadavs in the new cabinet and five Muslims, reviving Lalu Prasad’s tried-and-tested “MY” equation. The cabinet has three women, six ministers each from the upper and Scheduled Castes, and two each from the Kurmi and Kushwaha communities.

Samir Mahaseth is the only representative from the Vaishya (business) community. Three —Sheela Kumari, Anita Devi and Madan Sahni — hail from the extremely backward castes category.
After Tuesday’s allocation of ministerial berths, all eyes now would be on the Speaker as the Mahagathbandhan 2.0 government faces a floor test in the assembly on August 24.
Alleging “social imbalance” in the cabinet, former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi of BJP said only two communities — Muslims and Yadavs — had garnered “more than 33%” of the berths, leaving castes like Kanu, Teli, Kalwar and Kayasth with no representation. Sushil Modi also questioned the alleged “marginalisation” of extremely backward castes given their population size. “Renu Devi had been made deputy CM by BJP, but no minister from the group was considered for the job of deputy CM this time,” he told TOI.

RJD brought 10 first-timers to the cabinet in Samir Kumar Mahaseth (industries), Ramanand Yadav (mines and geology), Kumar Sarvajeet (tourism), Jitendra Kumar Rai (art, culture and youth affairs), Sudhakar Singh (agriculture), Kartik Kumar (law), Shamim Ahmed (sugarcane industries), Md Shahnawaz (disaster management), Surendra Ram (labour resources) and Md Israel Mansoori (IT).
Both Congress ministers — Afaquae Alam (animal and fisheries resources) and Murari Prasad Gautam (Panchayati Raj) — are also cabinet debutants. HAM-S’s Santosh Kumar Suman and Independent Sumit Kumar Singh complete the line-up.In the 33-strong cabinet, five – CM Nitish, Ashok Choudhary, Sanjay Jha, Santosh Suman and Kartik Kumar – are members of the state legislative council.