Overview
- At Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on Thursday, Governor Syed Ata Hasnain administered the oath to more than 30 ministers from the NDA in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
- Nishant Kumar, who joined the JD(U) in March, entered government weeks later and must win election to the Assembly or Council within six months because he is not yet a legislator.
- Multiple reports said the council drew from all five NDA partners, with tallies around 31–32 and an often-cited breakdown of 15 from the BJP, 13 from JD(U), two from LJP(RV), and one each from HAM-S and RLM.
- His induction followed earlier talk of a deputy chief minister role that he declined, with senior JD(U) leaders later persuading him to take a ministerial post to gain administrative experience.
- The expansion capped a transition that began when Nitish Kumar moved to the Rajya Sabha in March and Samrat Choudhary became Bihar’s first BJP chief minister on April 15, in what observers called a consolidation of power-sharing and social balance.