Bihar crucially needs a ministry expansion but the process has hit a hurdle with ruling partners Janata Dal United and BJP differing over their share of berths, sources in the alliance said.
They said the BJP, the senior partner with 74 seats, wants more ministers than the JDU which has 43 seats, but chief minister Nitish Kumar insists that the two allies should have an equal number of ministers.
Bihar now has only 14 ministers out of a permissible 36 – equivalent to 15 per cent of its 243 Assembly seats — and the expansion was expected immediately after a month’s stretch of “inauspicious” time ended on January 15.
Relations between the ruling allies have been uneasy for a while, with the BJP leveraging its numbers to foist on Nitish two deputy chief ministers, replacing Sushil Modi with whom the JDU leader had a comfortable working relationship. Recently in Arunachal, the BJP got several JDU members to defect, increasing the tensions.
Sources said Nitish’s assertiveness on ministry berths owed partly to his resentment at the way former ally Lok Janshakti Party was allowed to run a campaign against him ahead of the October-November polls, helping script his demotion from senior to junior partner in the alliance.
LJP chief Chirag Paswan put up candidates specifically targeting the JDU. The BJP is widely believed to have propped up and encouraged Chirag although neither acknowledges it.
“Nitish has been unable to get over the Chirag episode. It has hurt him and he is no mood to forgive because he believes it cost him several seats, turning him into the BJP’s junior partner,” a senior BJP politician told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.
“He wants to settle scores by ensuring that the JDU gets an equal number of ministry berths as the BJP.”
The BJP politician added that since his party was the bigger partner, it should have more ministers.
“While heading previous NDA governments, Nitish had allocated ministry berths to allies on the basis of their strength in the Assembly. He used to showcase this as an example of fairness and transparency. Let’s see if he remembers it now,” he said.
JDU secretary-general K.C. Tyagi refused to speak on the subject of his party demanding an equal share of ministry berths with the BJP.
Asked when the ministry expansion might happen, he tossed the ball into the BJP’s court. “It’s a very delicate thing. It will happen when the BJP prepares a list of its leaders and talks to the chief minister. We can’t discuss these things,” Tyagi said.
“Either the chief minister or Naddaji (BJP national president J.P. Nadda) or the Prime Minister can talk about these things.”
State BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal too sidestepped the issue of cabinet expansion and the hurdles before it, saying: “Please leave me out of this; these things are decided by our central leadership.”
A shortage of ministers has brought development efforts and decision-making virtually to a standstill since the new government was sworn in on November 16. Several among the 14 ministers hold charge of four to six departments.
The JDU has five ministers (after a sixth, Mewalal Chaudhary, had to resign over corruption charges) including Nitish while the BJP has seven. Smaller allies Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular and Vikassheel Insan Party have one each.
