Nitish Raj-II with swearing-in today

[1]

Bihar is all set to see the formal beginning of a promising “Nitish Raj-II” after the Assembly polls blew out the final flickering possibilities of a return of Lalu Raj. JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar, the victorious head of the state’s NDA government, would be sworn in as chief minister on Friday.

A day after Bihar’s ruling JD(U)-BJP alliance won a stupendous landslide victory, Mr Kumar was unanimously chosen both as the leader of the JD(U) Legislature Party and the NDA Legislature Party to put an official stamp on an inevitable political scenario. Similarly, his closest partner in the Bihar BJP, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, was on Thursday elected as leader of the BJP Legislature Party to continue in his post in the NDA government’s second innings in a state almost synonymous for Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav for long.
As Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan was being elaborately decorated for the swearing-in ceremony, governor Devanand Konwar invited Mr Kumar to the Raj Bhavan to form a government. A series of NDA leaders, led by Mr Kumar and including senior JD(U) and BJP leaders, met the governor and handed him the letter of support from 207 legislators from the two parties.
Sources in the two parties said Mr Kumar is likely to induct some new faces as ministers to emphasise his image as Mr Clean and Mr Efficient. Despite murmurs of protests from the incumbent ministers from the two parties, the names of the likely new faces include Parveen Amanullah, Shyam Razak, Satish Kumar from the JD(U) and Prem Ranjan Patel, Nityanand Rai, Sukhda Pandey, Ramadhar Singh and Amarendra Pratap Singh from the BJP, said the sources. The JD(U) is to have 20 ministers and the BJP 15 as per the existing arrangement.
The BJP, in a celebration mood due to its impressive strike rate in the Assembly polls, found its tally rise from 91 to 92 after an Independent MLA returned to the party. While the JD(U)’s strike rate, with 115 MLAs out of 141 candidates contesting, was 82 per cent, the BJP’s, with 102 candidates in the fray, was a staggering 90 per cent.