Bihar's new deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav meets Sonia Gandhi ahead of Cabinet expansion

New Delhi: Bihar's new deputy chief minister, Tejashwi Yadav, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her New Delhi residence on Friday evening. The meeting is seen as politically significant in view of the upcoming cabinet expansion in the state.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader also met other opposition leaders in the national capital and is learnt to have discussed the political situation in Bihar, after Janata Dal (U) leader Nitish Kumar returned to the Mahagathbandhan and formed the government along with the RJD, Congress and Left and smaller parties.

People in the know said the expansion of the cabinet, which currently comprises only chief minister Nitish Kumar and Yadav, would likely take place on August 16. They said the RJD might get 16 ministerial berths. While the JDU and Congress are likely to get 14 and four ministers, respectively, former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi's HAM may get one minister.


In the national capital, Yadav is likely to discuss the cabinet expansion with his father Lalu Prasad, who is currently staying in Delhi, before giving the final shape to the list of ministers from the RJD.

Earlier in the day, Yadav met CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI general secretary D Raja. He tweeted that he had positive discussions with the Left leaders on the current social, economic and political scenario prevailing in the country and Bihar.

The new government in Bihar will go for a floor test on August 24 to prove its majority in the assembly. The Mahagathbandhan, or Grand Alliance, has claimed the support of 164 MLAs in the 243-member House.

"Bihar, the land which gave birth to democracy, has again shown the way to the country," Yadav wrote in a tweet in Hindi.

Talking to reporters after his meeting with Gandhi, he said, "This is a government of poor people."