Nitish Kumar's Tenth Ministry: Continuity, Caste Calculations, Gender and Regional Imbalances

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has taken oath for the tenth time, inducting 26 ministers into his new cabinet. He is now second only to Jyoti Basu in the race for the longest-serving chief minister of a state that sends more than 25 MPs to Parliament. The NDA’s emphatic performance—built significantly on Nitish’s enduring popularity—highlights his continued relevance in Bihar’s complex political landscape.

The new cabinet, comprising 27 ministers with nine vacancies still open, represents a careful balancing of caste representation, coalition obligations and regional aspirations. Yet beneath this surface of continuity lie a series of contradictions that expose the challenges of representative governance in India’s third-most populous state.

The Architecture of Continuity
The most striking feature of this ministry is its emphasis on continuity. Nitish Kumar stays on as Chief Minister, flanked by two BJP Deputy CMs—Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha—replicating the power structure put in place in 2024 when the JDU rejoined the NDA before the general elections. This top-level trio projects stability even as coalition tensions and power negotiations shape the composition of the cabinet.

The BJP, with 14 ministers, commands the largest share, consistent with its seat strength. The JDU follows with nine ministers, while smaller allies—the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) with two, and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha and Hindustani Awam Morcha with one each—receive symbolic representation to keep the coalition intact.

The Caste Calculus: Representation and Reality

Composition of Nitish Kumar’s Ministry

Caste representation lies at the heart of Bihar politics, and this ministry reflects a familiar pattern. Roughly two-thirds of ministers come from OBC, EBC and SC-ST communities, mirroring their combined population share of around 70%.

But this apparent alignment masks deeper distortion. Upper castes, who make up around 15% of the population, hold 30% of cabinet positions—less than their 36% share of NDA MLAs, but still double their demographic weight. This continues the long-standing trend of upper-caste political dominance despite declining population share.

The Yadav community presents another telling example. Their representation has risen from 3% in Nitish’s ninth cabinet to 7% in the tenth—corresponding to their 6% share among NDA MLAs—even though fewer Yadav candidates were fielded. This appears designed to accommodate heavyweights like Ram Kripal Yadav, who lost his Lok Sabha seat to Misa Bharti in 2024 but won the Danapur assembly seat this year. The message is clear: NDA wants to cultivate its own Yadav leadership to counter Lalu Prasad Yadav’s dominance.

The Muslim Marginalisation
The most glaring inequity is in the representation of Muslims. With only one Muslim elected on an NDA ticket—and consequently only one Muslim minister—their cabinet share stands at just 4%, vastly below their 18% share in Bihar’s population.

This stems from the BJP’s unofficial policy of not fielding Muslim candidates: only four Muslims received NDA tickets. The resulting “representation gap” of 14 percentage points has effectively been used to accommodate upper-caste MLAs.

The Gender Mismatch
Women powered the NDA victory, but the cabinet does not reflect this. Only three of the 27 ministers (11%) are women. Just 12% of MLAs elected are women, despite record-breaking female turnout: women outvoted men by 434,000 votes, and their turnout was 8.8 percentage points higher.

As the VoteVibe exit poll shows, NDA enjoyed a 10.6% lead among female voters—accounting for 65% of its total vote-share advantage. Yet women remain sharply under-represented in the ministry.

Incremental Adjustments, Limited Reform
Compared to Nitish’s ninth cabinet (January 2024), the changes are minimal—primarily a bump in Yadav representation. The cabinet seems shaped more by the social composition of NDA MLAs than by any principle of proportional representation: “jiski jitni sankhya bhaari, uski utni hissedaari.”

Regional Disparities: The Geography of Power
The ministry also reveals sharp regional imbalances. South Bihar has 15 ministers and North Bihar 12. A division-wise analysis shows:

• Ang Pradesh and Patliputra dominate (22% and 23% representation)
• Tirhut has four ministers
• Bhojpur, Seemanchal and Saran have three each
• Mithilanchal and Tirhut—traditionally strong political regions—are underrepresented
• 18 of Bihar’s 38 districts have no representation
• Bhagalpur–Banka zone (Ang Pradesh) has zero Cabinet representation
• East Champaran, a major district, has no minister

These gaps could fuel regional discontent and provide political ammunition to the opposition.

The Road Ahead
With nine vacancies, Nitish Kumar has space to make course corrections—whether to soothe caste imbalances, gender gaps or regional grievances. But the fundamental tension between coalition arithmetic, caste realities and demographic justice is unlikely to disappear.

Nitish Kumar’s tenth ministry reflects the maturity and constraints of Bihar’s coalition politics—deep experience in balancing competing interests, yet an inability to escape the structural inequities that continue to shape the state’s political order.