Bihar Cabinet: Nitish keeps Home Ministry, assigns Finance to Sushil Modi

Patna: Bihar's 27 new ministers, including 14 from the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), 12 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one from the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), who swore-in on Saturday have been distributed with their respective portfolios.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has kept the Home Ministry to himself, while his deputy, Sushil Modi, has been given the charge of Finance and Commerce.

JD(U)'s Krishna Nandan Verma has been given the important Education Ministry, and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Vinod Kumar Jha has been given PHED.

Rajeev Ranjan, Maheshwar Hazari, Manju Verma and Vijendra Yadav have been assigned Water Resources, Building Construction, Social Welfare, and Energy respectively.

Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the Chief Minister and BJP's Sushil Modi as the Deputy on Thursday, a day after the former ended the 'mahagathbandhan' and came back to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fold, with taking the oath for the sixth time.

JD(U)'s Kapil Dev Kamat, Dinesh Chandra Yadav, Santosh Kumar Nirala, Maheshwar Hazari, Shailesh Kumar, Jay Kumar Singh, Krishna Nandan Prasad Verma and Shrawan Kumar and BJP's Ramesh Rishidev, Brij Kishor, Rana Randhir Singh, Vinod Narayan Jha, Pramod Kumar and Ram Narayan Mandal among other took oath as ministers in the Bihar Government.

Nitish Kumar won the floor test in the Bihar Legislative Assembly with 131 votes in favour and 108 against.

The Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) and the BJP MLAs staked claim to form the government in the state, after Nitish ended the 'mahagathbandhan' in the state and resigned from his post, instead of Tejaswi Yadav, as was being speculated and expected.

Nitish resigned citing political differences with former ally, Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD, over corruption charges against Tejaswi, following which the state saw a rigmarole of political events including dharnas and probationary orders.