Nitish Kumar took oath as Chief Minister of Bihar

Janatal Dal (United) leader NItish Kumar on 22 February 2015 was sworn in as the 34th Chief Minister of Bihar.

He succeeded Jitan Ram Manjhi, who resigned from his office on 20 February 2015 before the trust vote wherein he was supposed to prove majority in the 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Kumar’s oath of the office and secrecy was administered by Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at the Raj Bhawan in Patna.

With this, Nitish Kumar took oath as the state’s chief minister for the fourth time. His previous three terms are enumerated below:
• First term – 3 March 2000 and 10 March 2000. He resigned after he failed to prove majority.
• Second term – 24 November 2005 and 24 November 2010
• Third term – 26 November 2010 and 17 May 2014. He resigned from his office on 17 May 2014 after his party performed poorly in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Ministers in Nitish Kumar’s Government
Besides Kumar, 22 ministers including three women were also administered the oath of office. Out of these 22 ministers, 20 ministers were in Jitan Ram Manjhi government.

The ministers who took oath of their offices include Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Vijendra Prasad Yadav, Ramai Ram, Damodar Raut, Narendra Narayan Yadav, P.K. Shahi, Shyam Rajak, Awadesh Kushwaha, Lesie Singh, Dulal Chand Goswami, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh, Shrawan Kumar, Ramlashan Ram Raman, Ramdhani Singh, Jai Kumar Singh, Manoj Kumar Singh, Javed Iqbal Ansari, Bima Bharti, Ranju Geeta, Baidyanath Sahni, Vinod Singh Yadav and Naushad Alam.

Nitish-led JD(U) government in Bihar has been asked to prove his majority in the Bihar Assembly by 16 March 2015.

Present situation in Bihar Assembly
Bihar Assembly is a house of 243-seats and it needs 117 seats in support for formation of the government.

At present Nitish Kumar led JD(U) has 109 MLAs beside the Speaker in the House, while BJP have 87 MLAs and is supported by four Independent candidates. However, Nitish Kumar claims that he has support of 128 MLAs.

Earlier in the first week of February 2015, JD(U) had suspended Jitan Ram Manjhi along with seven other MLAs who supported his decision to not quit from his office.

The seven suspended Ministers were: Narendra Singh, Brishen Patel, Shahid Ali Khan, Samrat Chaudhary, Nitish Mishra, Mahachandra Prasad Singh and Bhim Singh.