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Sushant Rajput’s cousin to Shahnawaz, what BJP faces in Bihar cabinet say about its politics

Seventeen Bihar ministers were sworn in Tuesday, taking the total strength to 31, of whom 13 are from the JD(U) and 16 from the BJP.

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Patna: The much-awaited Bihar cabinet expansion took place Tuesday when 17 more ministers were sworn in — nine from the BJP and eight from JD(U).

This takes the total ministerial strength in the Bihar government to 31 (including the chief minister) — 13 from the JD(U), 16 from the BJP, and one each from the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) and the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).

The key new faces include the BJP national spokesperson BJP Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and former IPS officer Sunil Kumar — a St Stephen College alumni from the JD(U).

While the JDU relied mainly on old faces it was the BJP which went ahead with fresh faces and only Promod Kumar who was in the previous ministry managed to make it back to the ministry.

BJP plays its caste hand

The expansion Tuesday showed that the BJP has taken caste considerations into account. Having already installed an OBC (Tarkishore Prasad) and an EBC (Renu Devi), the BJP has accommodated four upper castes in the expansion.

The BJP has brought in Nitin Navin, an upper caste Kayastha who had defeated Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv Sinha in Patna’s Bankipur assembly seat. It’s been three decades since Bihar had a minister from the Kayastha community.

The party also inducted a minister (Samrat Choudhary) from the Kushwaha community, the second largest in OBC group.

For the first time in Bihar the party has also sent feeders to the Muslim population with the anointment of Shahnawaz Hussain. The BJP is also looking at Hussain to counter Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The JD(U), meanwhile, has remained status quoist in its approach, reluctant to bring in new players for caste arithmetics. It has given two berths to Rajputs, one to Brahmin and has a Kurmi, a Dalit, an EBC a Muslim and a Kushwaha in its ranks.


Also read: ‘Like Kim Jong-un’s diktat’ — Bihar opposition slams Nitish govt’s circular on protests


New faces for BJP, JD(U) sticks to old guns

While the BJP has retained only Pramod Kumar from the previous NDA government, Nitish Kumar has accommodated most of his old loyalists.

They include Sanjay Jha, a former Arun Jaitley loyalist who has been close to Nitish for over a decade now, and Srawan Kumar, a seven-time MLA from Nalanda district who is the chief minister’s go-to man on issues of floor management in the assembly, handling defections or holding talks with other parties.

The new JD(U) faces inducted Tuesday include former IPS officer Sunil Kumar and Jayant Raj. In all, the JD(U) has only three first-time ministers among the 13 it has in the cabinet.

The BJP, however, has continued with its policy of searching for new leaders. It has already eased out former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi and has left others of the old guard, such as Nand Kishor Yadav, out in the cold.

Among those the party has brought in is Neeraj Kumar Bablu, the MLA from Chhatapur in Saharsa district from 2005. Bablu is the cousin of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput and is now a prominent Rajput face from the flood-hit Kosi region.

JD(U) keeps plum posts

Despite the BJP putting pressure on Nitish for some more important departments, the chief minister has refused to oblige.

Even Shahnawaz Hussain has been handed the industry department, which has nothing much to speak for itself in Bihar. The BJP’s Nitin Navin has been handed the road construction department, while Vijay Choudhary is the education minister and Samrat Choudhary is the panchayati raj minister.

The old JD(U) guard has retained key portfolios such as rural development, education and water resources. Former IPS officer Sunil Kumar has been given excise and prohibition in the dry state.


Also read: Nitish Kumar’s pre-2005 ‘Jungle Raj’ dig at Lalu is now haunting him as crime rises in Bihar


 

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1 COMMENT

  1. If it’s true, it’s quite revealing: referring to the higher caste, Kayastha, the report says, “It’s been three decades since Bihar had a minister from the Kayastha community.” Right after the JP-led Bihar movement in mid- 70’s and the formation of the Janata government in Bihar under the leadership of Karpoori Thakur (an EBC), the province became steadily a turf where the higher caste politicians felt an increasing push-back from the backward caste leaders. The enforcement of the Mandal Commission Report by the Prime Minister V. P. Singh increasing reservation for the OBCs further added strength on the side of the lower and the middle castes. Lalu, during his term as Chief Minister, gave an open call for uprooting BHUREBAL (brown hair) from the administrative-political system of Bihar. BHUREBAL was an acronym coined by him that stood for Bhumihar, Rajput, Brahman and Lala (Kayastha). Against this political onslaught, the three castes other than the Kayasthas could still survive because of their numerical strength and rural presence. The Kayasthas fell by the wayside because they were weak in number and largely urban- based. The political parties wouldn’t bet on fielding candidates from the Kayastha community because they wouldn’t bring in muscle and money power. During the regime of the Indira Congress, particularly during the national Emergency, too, the Kayasthas were targeted and victimized at the socio-political and administrative levels because they were all viewed as supporters of Jayprakash Narayan, a Kayastha. Nitish Kumar, in his animosity against the higher castes, didn’t prove any different from his predecessor, Lalu — although it’s accepted in Bihar political circles that Nitish’s politics was buttressed and financed by the Bhumihars. Sadly now, the net result of the Bihar fratricidal caste warfare going on for half a century is here for everyone to see. For all his failures, Nitish is still blaming Lalu who was driven out of power fifteen years ago. And, in the meantime, almost all of the Biharis who could have contributed to the development of the province with their labor, scholarship, skills or entrepreneurship, but who could also have really visualized the years ahead for Bihar, decamped their land. In the toxic political climate that drew its sustenance from corruption, money and murder, the Kayasthas became very vulnerable. Hopefully, the page will turn someday.

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