Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is likely to expand his Cabinet on Thursday (March 14), said the sources adding the induction of new ministers will take place at 5 pm.
The list of new ministers was finalised during a crucial meeting chaired by the chief minister. His two Deputies - Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha - and others were present in the meeting.
Apart from BJP leaders, Lalan Singh, Sanjay Jha, Bijendra Yadav and Vijay Chaudhary from JD-U also attended the meeting.
The expansion of the NDA government in Bihar was due since its inception.
Earlier on February 3, Nitish Kumar allocated portfolios in the new Bihar cabinet, with keeping the crucial home portfolio with himself. But, he gave away finance, which his JD(U) had held, to new ally BJP.
According to an official notification besides home, which helps the CM maintain control over the state police, Kumar has also retained key departments like cabinet secretariat, election, vigilance, general administration and "all other portfolios not allocated to anyone else".
State BJP chief Samrat Choudhary, who has become a Deputy Chief Minister, has got finance, a portfolio that his party has always held whenever it has shared power with the JD(U) supremo.
Earlier, when Kumar was running a government with the 'Mahagathbandhan', comprising Congress, RJD, the health, finance department was held by the JD(U).
Besides finance, Choudhary has been given health, another portfolio that the BJP has held whenever it shares power in Bihar. Besides, he has been given commercial tax, urban development and housing, sports, panchayati raj, animal husbandry and fisheries and law.
Choudhary's party colleague Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is also a Deputy CM, has been given agriculture, road construction, revenue and land reforms, mining and geology, sugarcane, labour resources, art, culture and youth affairs, minor water resources and public health engineering department, the notification said.
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