Patna, May 4 (PTI) Amid speculations of a cabinet expansion in Bihar, Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary on Monday met his predecessor Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), at the residence of the key alliance partner.
Choudhary, who is the first BJP leader to helm a government in Bihar, visited the residence of Kumar shortly after returning to the state capital from New Delhi, where he met several top NDA leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, over the weekend.
Sharing photographs of his meeting with the JD(U) president, in the presence of senior party leader and Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, the CM wrote on his X handle that they “shared the moment of pride in the NDA’s resounding victory”, an obvious reference to the performance of the BJP and its allies in the assembly polls to West Bengal, Assam and Puducherry.
Earlier, Choudhary had shared a tweet of the JD(U) supremo, now a Rajya Sabha MP, who had expressed delight over the NDA’s success in the assembly elections.
Meanwhile, speculations are rife that the election results cleared the decks for a cabinet expansion in Bihar, where Choudhary was sworn in last month with only two ministers, both from the JD(U).
Besides Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, veteran leader Bijendra Prasad Yadav had taken oath, and both have been designated as Deputy CMs.
In a state with a 243-strong assembly, the cabinet can accommodate up to 30 ministers. The expanded cabinet is likely to have more faces from both BJP and JD(U), in addition to other NDA partners, LJPRV and HAM headed by Union ministers Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi, respectively, besides Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM, all of which currently have no representation.
When former state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal was asked about rumours that the cabinet expansion was likely to take place on May 7, he said, “It is the chief minister’s prerogative, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that”.
Meanwhile, a huge tent was being erected at the city’s historical Gandhi Maidan, where officials were tight-lipped about what the preparations were for, though BJP leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that the cabinet expansion would be “a grand spectacle”, unlike Choudhary’s swearing-in ceremony, which was low-key and took place at Raj Bhavan. PTI NAC MNB
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