Santosh Singh

The much-awaited cabinet expansion is likely anytime now.

Singh (38) was shot dead on Tuesday outside his residence in Patna. The Opposition has targeted the Nitish Kumar government over the incident.

The elevation of low-profile Vaishali leader to the post of the state president has come as a surprise to many as he was not counted among even second-rung JD(U) leaders.

The degrees of more than 1.10 lakh teachers have been under scrutiny of the Vigilance Investigation Bureau (VIB) since 2014 after a Patna High Court direction.

“There could be 10 ministers from BJP and seven from JD(U). There is no call yet on giving additional ministerial berths to HAM(S) and VIP,” a BJP source said.

The Education Department has identified four points where children tend to drop out from school — after Class 5 and Class 8, when a student has to change from primary to secondary and from secondary to higher secondary classes, respectively; as well as after the Class 10 and Class 12 boards.

Manjhi's son Santosh Kumar Suman is already a minister in the Nitish Kumar-led government, and the party has four MLAs in the Assembly, including the former CM.

A delegation of RTI activists on Monday met the BSIC’s top functionaries to discuss their concerns. “There are over 20,000 pending cases, including over 6,000 of second appeals.

"When I sought information of the status of cases against activists, I was told that 184 of 213 cases have been disposed of. But I was not told what action was taken against officials and people responsible for harassing them,” said RTI activist Shiv Prakash Rai.

Deputy CM Tarkishore Prasad owns four vehicles including an Innova and Scorpio. His wife has commercial land worth Rs 30 lakh in Katihar.

Despite the pandemic, Bihar saw a good voter turnout and recorded polling of over 57 per cent. More than seven crore single-use gloves, over seven lakh units of hand sanitisers, and about six lakh PPE kits were procured for the polls.

The JD (U) has 43 MLAs in the 243-member Assembly. The NDA currently holds 125 seats in the Assembly, while the RJD, the Congress and the Left parties hold 75 and 19 seats and 16 seats, respectively.

Maintaining that they are keeping a close eye on the developments in Bihar, senior RJD leaders said it is “clear that the BJP is asserting its authority” over Nitish Kumar in the Bihar alliance as well.

Sushil Modi further added that Nitish Kumar did not want to be the chief minister after the Bihar poll results. "In the end, he accepted to become the CM on request of JDU, BJP, and VIP leaders," he added.

Nitish Kumar, who had been holding the position of the party’s national president, said he wanted to focus on governance.

Why did Nitish Kumar choose RCP Singh ahead of others? Does it mean RCP is heir to Nitish Kumar? What electoral value does he have?

The Bihar CM holds charge of home, general administration, vigilance and general administration departments.

The JD(U) -- BJP’s alliance partner in Bihar -- has reacted sharply, calling the move “unfriendly”. The party is likely to discuss the matter at its upcoming national executive on December 27 in Patna.

The JD(U) is scheduled to hold its national executive meeting on December 27 in Patna after formally meeting its leaders the day before.

It is important for Congress to emerge as an alternative to BJP for sake of democracy,” RJD national vice-president and former MP Shivanand Tewari said.

Pointing out the revenue loss for the fund-starved state, Ajit Sharma wrote, “There has been loss of Rs 4,000 crore-Rs 5,000 crore to the state exchequer because of the prohibition. Liquor mafia would be earning twice the amount.”

This came a day after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agreed to merge his combined development scheme Saat Nischay-II with BJP's Atmanirbhar Bihar.

The study said "customers on average received about 17 hours of electricity in a day, and many paid less than 20 per cent of their share. Most strikingly, the areas that paid more didn't necessarily get more power."

According to BJP sources, Nitish Mishra, Nitin Navin, Sanjeev Chourasia and Samrat Choudhary are among the younger crop of leaders who could get a seat in the next Cabinet expansion.