PC: anandabazar

Nishant Kumar, son of former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, took oath as a minister in the state on Thursday. Along with him, 31 more ministers of BJP-JDU alliance took oath as ministers. He has been given the post of Health Minister in the cabinet of Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary.

After taking oath as minister, Nishant said, “I will work under the leadership of Honorable Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary following the instructions of my father. I will try to maintain the trust that the big leaders of JDU have reposed in me. I will try to work with full honesty and move forward on the path of development that my father has shown to Bihar.”

On March 8, Nishant officially joined his father Nitish’s political party JDU. Nitish had resigned from the post of Chief Minister of Bihar after being elected Rajya Sabha MP on April 15. Since then, there was speculation that he might appoint his son Nishant as a minister from the party. Incidentally, Nishant studied from Patna Kendriya Vidyalaya. After completing his schooling, he also worked in a multinational company. However, before March he never showed any enthusiasm to enter active politics.

15 ministers of BJP, which has the status of the largest party with 89 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly, took oath on Thursday. A total of 15 JDU ministers, including Nitish’s son Nishant, are in the Samrat cabinet. Of these, 13 took oath at Gandhi Maidan on Thursday. Vijaykumar Chaudhary and Vijendra Prasad Yadav were sworn in as deputy chief ministers along with Samrat on April 15. Apart from this, Sanjay Kumar Singh and Sanjay Kumar Paswan of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) led by Union Minister Chirag Paswan became ministers again on Thursday. Another Union minister, Santosh Kumar Suman of Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Deepak Prakash, son of Rashtriya Lok Morcha chief Upendra Kushwaha, have also become ministers again.