'Nitish Kumar is the only leader who gave us everything.'
Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar is set to be sworn-in as Bihar chief minister for a record 10th time on Thursday, days after the National Democratic Alliance secured a landslide victory in the assembly elections.
'We have 38 Dalits who are MLAs and ministers. But that does not mean the Dalits of Bihar are prospering.'
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
Security forces on Thursday seized a whopping 4,600 kgs of Ammonium Nitrate, used for making improvised explosive devices and bombs, from Bihar's Rohtas district.
The members of the cabinet committees included Union ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party and its National Democratic Alliance partners like Janata Dal-United, Telugu Desam Party, Janata Dal-Secular, Shiv Sena and Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas.
There is also speculation within the BJP that its national president J P Nadda, whose extended tenure will end by this month and who was among the leaders meeting Modi, may also be brought back in the government.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
In some Bihar constituencies, candidates named Ram are fighting each other.
The RJD is yet to complete its seat-sharing talks with smaller allies and the Left parties.
About 65.46 per cent electorate on Tuesday exercised their franchise in the second of the five-phase polling for the 20 Maoist-hit assembly constituencies as the day passed off peacefully.
While Congress-ruled states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Assam expressed fears about the sudden demise of the planning process and wondered what it would be replaced with, also worrying about the immediate implications on annual Plan outlays, Andhra Pradesh said it was considering setting up its own NITI Aayog.
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