Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record tenth time on Thursday, 20 November 2025. The oath taking ceremony, held at Gandhi Maidan in Patna, was administered by Bihar Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J. P. Nadda and several Union ministers in attendance.
Soon after Nitish Kumar took the oath, BJP leaders Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers, with both expected to continue serving as Deputy Chief Ministers. A total of twenty-six ministers joined the Cabinet during the ceremony, which saw eight members from the JD(U), fourteen from the BJP, two from the LJP (Ram Vilas), and one each from HAM-S and the RLM inducted into the council of ministers. They were sworn in in batches of six, and nine additional Cabinet positions are set to be filled later.
Several senior ministers from the previous Nitish Cabinet returned to their posts, reinforcing continuity in key departments. Among those retained were Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Shravan Kumar, Mangal Pandey, Dilip Kumar Jaiswal and Ashok Choudhary. The government also features a blend of experienced leaders and newcomers, with longstanding figures such as Jama Khan, the sole Muslim representative in the Cabinet, continuing in office. New inductees include Ramkripal Yadav, Shreyashi Singh, Rama Nishad, Sanjay Singh Tiger, Arun Shankar Prasad, Lakhendra Prasad Roshan, Narayan Prasad, Sanjay Kumar and Sanjay Kumar Singh from the LJP(RV), alongside Deepak Prakash from the RLM.
Deepak Prakash, the son of senior leader Upendra Kushwaha, has been appointed despite not currently being a member of either house of the Bihar legislature, and he is expected to be nominated to the Legislative Council. The lone Cabinet berth for HAM-S has gone to Santosh Kumar Suman, who also served in Nitish Kumar’s previous government. Representation in the new Cabinet includes only three women, Leshi Singh, Shreyashi Singh and Rama Nishad. Notably, Rama Nishad has become the first MLA from the Aurai constituency to be appointed as a minister.
Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in followed the NDA’s unanimous decision to elect him as the leader of the alliance’s Legislature Party on Wednesday. He had earlier been chosen as the leader of the JD(U) Legislature Party in a meeting with newly elected MLAs at his official residence in Patna, setting the stage for the formation of the new government.
