Patna: On Thursday, Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the chief minister of Bihar for the tenth time at a well-attended Gandhi Maidan, where 26 ministers also took the oath of office and secrecy. Among them, Mohammad Jama Khan stood out as the sole Muslim representative in the new cabinet, further underscoring the NDA’s limited minority representation in the state’s leadership. Khan, who represents the Chainpur constituency in Kaimur, achieved his second consecutive victory by defeating RJD’s Brij Kishore Bind with a margin of 8,362 votes. He previously held the position of Bihar’s Minority Affairs Minister, and his return to the cabinet had been widely expected.
Initially a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Jama Khan first entered the Assembly in 2020 using the BSP’s ‘elephant’ symbol before joining the Janata Dal (United). His transition to JDU granted him a ministerial position in the previous Nitish government, which he now continues to hold. Despite Muslims winning 11 seats in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, the NDA managed to secure only one Muslim MLA—Jama Khan himself. JDU put forward five Muslim candidates, while the BJP did not nominate any Muslim candidates during this election cycle. The other elected Muslim MLAs—five from AIMIM and others from opposition parties—are not part of the ruling coalition.
The cabinet sworn in alongside Nitish Kumar features key leaders from both BJP and JDU: BJP: Samrat Chaudhary, Vijay Kumar Sinha, Dilip Jaiswal, Mangal Pandey, Ram Kripal Yadav, Arun Shankar Prasad, Rama Nishad, Nitin Nabin, Surendra Prasad Mehta JDU: Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Shravan Kumar, Ashok Chaudhary, Leshi Singh, Madan Sahni, Sunil Kumar, Mohammad Jama Khan HAM (S): Santosh Suman RLM: Deepak Prakash (son of Upendra Kushwaha).
