Bihar got a better pie in the Modi.3 Council of Ministers when compared to Uttar Pradesh given the coalition dharma since the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (U) and Chirag Paswan-led LJP have extended support to Narendra Modi with 12 and five Lok Sabha seats, respectively.
Among the new faces included is Ram Nath Thakur. JD(U) leader and son of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur. The moves send a strong message to the EBCs in Bihar. For the States — Bihar and UP — caste combination and comfort of the allies have been kept in mind.
The other five Bihar leaders who were inducted in the Council of Ministers included JD(U)’s Rajiv Ranjan Singh, BJP’s Giriraj Singh, and Nityanand Rai, LJP’s Chirag Paswan, HAM’s Jitan Ram Manjhi.
Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, former national president of JD(U) and a senior leader of his party, is a trusted loyalist of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and has served as a Minister in the State Government.
Singh, 69, an upper Bhumihar caste, began his political career in 1974. He later joined the old Janata Dal Parivar and was among the founding members of the Samata Party, led by Nitish and former Defence Minister George Fernandes.
Incumbent Union Minister and Bihar BJP stalwart Giriraj Singh, who was re-elected from Begusarai, also took the oath with his party colleague and MoS Nityanand Rai who were part of the outgoing Modi.2 Government.
BJP has promoted Rai as a Yadav face in Bihar to counter RJD’s traditional Yadav vote base and made him the State president of the party in 2016.
Actor turned politician, Chirag Paswan, president of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Bihar, entered the 18th Lok Sabha with an enviable distinction of having a 100 per cent strike rate for his relatively new political outfit, having won all the five seats it contested during the recently concluded general elections.
Jitan Ram Manjhi, Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) founder and former Bihar Chief Minister, is one of the Dalit faces of the NDA in Bihar. Elected to the State Assembly for the first time in 1980 as a Congress MLA, Manjhi has always held a prominent position in the State Government.
However due to poor performance by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, representation in the Modi.3 council of Ministers was downsized with party’s stalwart Rajnath Singh, party colleagues SPS Baghel, Kamlesh Paswan, Savitri Thakur and Jitin Prasad besides alliance partner Anupriya Patel making it.
