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Nitish sworn in Bihar CM; Modi to be his deputy
Sanjay Singh/TNS

Patna, November 26
Nitish Kumar was today sworn in as the Bihar Chief Minister for the second consecutive term and the third time at a simple ceremony at the sprawling Gandhi Maidan here. Nitish, who is heading a 30-member ministry, is the state’s 32nd Chief Minister and steered the NDA to an incredible victory -- winning 206 of 243 seats. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi was also sworn in as a Cabinet minister. Modi will again be designated as Deputy CM. Governor Devanand Konwar administered the oath of office and secrecy to them along with 18 MLAs from the JD-U and 10 from the BJP as ministers.

Both the JD-U and BJP appeared to have taken care of giving representation to all sections (caste and creed) and regions in ministry formation. The new Nitish Cabinet, so far, has 11 members from the upper castes, nine from Other Backward Castes and four each from the Extremely Backward Castes (EBC) and Scheduled Castes (SC).

No numbers for Oppn leader!

Patna, November 26
The Nitish Kumar-led JDU-BJP alliance’s landslide win in Bihar leaves the state Assembly in a piquant situation with no party eligible numerically to claim Leader of the Opposition party status.

This situation has arisen since it is for the first time in the history of the Bihar Assembly that no Opposition party has got even 10 per cent of the seats at stake in the elections. For an MLA to qualify as Leader of Opposition, his party needs to have at least 10 per cent seats of the total strength of the state Assembly (243 seats), which is 25 seats. Neither Lalu Prasad’s RJD with 22 seats nor its pre-poll ally LJP with only three seats meet the eligibility criteria as laid out in the Bihar Legislative Assembly rules. The Congress with four seats and CPI and JMM bagging a seat each are the other Opposition parties that are nowhere near meeting the criteria. — PTI