2015-11-20 14:11:02(IST): Lalu Yadav’s sons Tejaswi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav sworn in as Ministers in Bihar Cabinet.
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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda are likely to attend the function. Consequently, Nitish Kumar has to first focus on the job in hand and only after securing his position and stabilising his government should he look beyond Bihar. Burying the hatchet, ex-members of the Grand Alliance – Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar – too have been invited for the event.
Mr Tejaswi Yadav, the new Deputy Chief Minister, will be in charge of Road Construction and Building Construction Departments.
Lalu’s elder son Tej Pratap is the new health minister, official sources said. A number of Congress chief ministers, including Virbhadra Singh (Himachal Pradesh), Oommen Chandy (Kerala), Tarun Gogoi (Assam) and Siddaramaiah (Karnataka) attended the event as did the CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, and DMK’s M K Stalin and T R Baalu.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be attending the Nitish’s swearing in ceremony and has deputed Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Rajiv Pratap Rudy to represent the government at the ceremony.
Apart from two sons of Lalu as well as Siddiqui, other Ministers from RJD are: Alok Kumar Mehta, Chandrika Rai, Ram Vichar Rai, Shiv Chandra Ram, Abdul Ghafoor, Chandrashekhar, Muneshwar Choudhary, Anita Devi and Vijay Prakash.
Lalu Prasad, whose RJD is the single largest party in the 243-member house, appeared pleased when his sons took oath immediately after Nitish Kumar.
Manju Varma, Madan Sahni, Shailesh Kumar and Kapildeo Kamat were among those tipped for ministerial berths.
12 from RJD and four from Congress took oath of office on Friday. This time, having made up with Lalu Prasad, he humbled the prime minister in an election result which most pundits said would have national repurcussions.
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Senior JD-U leader Lalal Singh, known to be close to Nitish Kumar, has been given the water resources development portfolio. According to this formula, the RJD’s share is 16, the JD(U)’s 14 and the Congress is 5, besides the CM.
