Apr 13 2008
Nitish drops 10 ministers in Bihar, inducts 19 new faces!
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday dropped 10 of his ministers inducting 19 new ones in their place to improve the performance of his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. It is his first reshuffle during his 28 month long ministry since November 2005.
Eight among the ten dropped ministers belonged to JD(U). Those ministers include Rural Development Minister Vaidyanath Mahto, Building Construction and Housing Minister Monajir Hasan, Youth, Art and Culture Minister Janardan Sigrawal, Welfare Minister Rameshwar Paswan, Minister of State for Food, Supply and Commerce Suchitra Devi, Minister of State for Information and Public Relations Arjun Rai, Minister of State for Transport Ajit Kumar, Minister of State for Minority Welfare Manjar Alam and Minor Water Resources Minister Vishwa Mohan Kumar.
While the other two were Health Minister Chandra Mohan Rai and Arts and Culture Minister Janardan Singh Sirgriwal from BJP.
Governor R.S. Gavai administered the oath of office to the 17 new cabinet ministers and two ministers of state at Raj Bhawan in Patna.
Of the 17 cabinet ministers sworn-in, Renu Devi, Giriraj Singh, Bhola Prasad Singh, Ramnarayan Mandal and Awadhesh Narain Singh are from BJP, while Nagmani, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Chedi Paswan, Dinesh Prasad, Damodar Rawat, Ramanandan Singh, Harinarayan Singh, Shahid Ali Khan, Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha, Dinesh Chandra Yadav, Rampravesh Rai and Hari Prasad Sao from JD(U).
Jamshed Ashraf of JD(U) and Vyasdeo Prasad of BJP took oath as ministers of state.
The strength of the council of ministers has now gone up from 27 to 36.
