PATNA, Apr 15: BJP leader Samrat Choudhary was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar on Wednesday, the first from the saffron party to hold the post.
Governor Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) administered the oath of office and secrecy to Choudhry as chief minister and to JD(U)’s Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Bijendra Prasad Yadav as members of the Council of Ministers at the Lok Bhawan here.
Both Vijay Kumar Choudhary and Yadav were part of the Council of Ministers in the Nitish Kumar government. They are considered close to Kumar, the JD(U) supremo.
NDA sources said the council of ministers would be expanded later as more members from the alliance partners would be accommodated in the new grouping.
Top leaders of the ruling NDA in Bihar, which comprises the BJP, JD(U) and three other parties, attended the ceremony.
They included Union Ministers J P Nadda and Chirag Paswan, Nitish Kumar, and all NDA MLAs. Nitish Kumar, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, relinquished the chief minister’s post on Tuesday, dissolving his cabinet in which Samrat Choudhary was a deputy chief minister and held the crucial home portfolio Choudhary, the newly appointed chief minister, who joined the BJP in 2017, was named the legislative party leader on Tuesday in the presence of top functionaries like BJP chief Nitin Nabin and Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whom the parliamentary board had named as “central observer” for the transition.
His Cabinet colleague Vijay Kumar Choudhary has been a member of the Bihar assembly since 1982 and has held various ministerial positions, as well as that of House speaker earlier.
Yadav has been representing the Supaul assembly seat since 1990. In the previous NDA government in the state, he was in charge of the power department. (Agencies)
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