Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday inducted seven new faces, all from alliance partner BJP, into his council of ministers, raising the total number to 36, the maximum permissible in the state with a 243-strong assembly.

Governor Arif Mohammad Khan administered the oath of office to the members of the assembly in Bihar, where elections are due later this year. The also has a legislative council.

The new ministers include Jibesh Kumar, who was a member of the state Cabinet till August 2022, when the chief minister abruptly quit the NDA, accusing the BJP of trying to “break” his JD(U).

Other inductees are Sanjay Saraogi, a fifth-term MLA from Darbhanga, and Sunil Kumar, who represents Bihar Sharif, in the CM’s pocket borough Nalanda, for as many times, thrice on a JD(U) ticket before crossing over to the BJP in 2015.

Another former JD(U) face was Raju Kumar Singh, the MLA from Sahebganj in Muzaffarpur, who had won the seat in 2020 on a ticket of Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP), floated by former Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni.

The VIP had won altogether three seats but all the MLAs joined BJP two years ago after Sahni burnt his bridges with the saffron party, losing his cabinet berth in the bargain.

Another notable face was Krishna Kumar Mantu, the MLA from Amnour in Saran district, who was recently in the news for organising a “Kurmi Chetna Rally” in Patna, with a view to reaching out to the powerful OBC community to which the JD(U) supremo belongs.

The remaining two inductees were Vijay Kumar Mandal, who represents Sikti in Araria district and Moti Lal Prasad, the MLA from Riga in Sitamarhi.

A careful calculation of the BJP’s support base seems to have been at work in the cabinet expansion that took place a day after the party’s national president chaired a meeting of the “core group” here.

Two of the new ministers, Jibesh Kumar (Bhumihar) and Raju Kumar Singh (Rajput), belong to the upper castes, which make for a little over 10 per cent of the population in Bihar, but have been the BJP’s most loyal voters over decades.

Besides, with the exception of Sunil Kumar, all hail from the region north of the Ganges, where the NDA has been performing better than the rival RJD, Congress and Left combine.

The development took place on a day state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal, the former minister for revenue and landforms, gave up his cabinet berth citing the party’s policy of “one person, one post”.

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