Bihar CM Nitish Kumar allocates portfolios to newly inducted Ministers

PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday allocated portfolios to newly inducted ministers, a day after they were sworn in at a mega event held at the historic Gandhi Maidan in Patna. Home Department, which had been held by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar even since he took reins of the State in 2005, has now gone to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after several rounds of discussions among NDA partners over portfolio allocation. Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary has been assigned the Home portfolio. Notably, Samrat stoked a controversy over his educational qualifications earlier. Only 18 out of the 26 ministers who were sworn in on Thursday have been allocated portfolios. Prashant Kishor accepts full responsibility for Jan Suraajs Bihar Poll debacle Caste and social engineering balance in Nitish cabinet 10.0 Deputy chief minister Vijay Kumar Sinha has been assigned the Revenue and Land Reforms Department, while Mangal Pandey will head both the Health and Law Departments. Dilip Jaiswal, who is also holding charge of the State BJP, has been appointed as the Industries minister. Nitin Nabin has been assigned to Road construction as well as the Urban Development and Housing Departments. Ram Kripal Yadav will serve as the Agriculture minister, and Sanjay Tiger shall take charge of the Labour Resources Department. Arun Shankar Prasad has been given the Tourism Department, in addition to the Art, Culture and Youth Affairs Department. Surendra Mehta will handle Animal Husbandry and the Fisheries Resources Department, and Narayan Prasad will head the Disaster Management Department. Rama Nishad will oversee the Backward and Extremely Backward Class Welfare Department. Lakhendra Kumar Raushan will look after the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes department, whereas Shreyasi Singh will manage the Information Technology and Sports Departments. Pramod Kumar has been allotted the Co-operatives and Environment, Forest and Climate Change department. Only 187 of 1,700 trans gender electors voted in Bihar Assembly polls, Election Commission data shows