BJP's Nand Kishore Yadav to be next Speaker?

Patna, Nov 16: The Bharatiya Janata Party, which emerged as big brother in the recently held Bihar elections likely to gain the post of speaker in the House, a position that the JD(U) had held to date.

The names of former minister Nand Kishore Yadav and ex-deputy speaker, Amarendra Pratap Singh are the names doing the rounds for the post of Speaker. The present speaker, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, of the JD(U) will be inducted into the cabinet.

The possible induction in the ministry of Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who was the assembly Speaker for the past five years, is being seen as an indication of the likelihood of the BJP having struck a hard bargain for the crucial post.

The NDA has worked out a formula for the allocation of ministerial berths.

The JD(U) with 43 MLAs will get a maximum of 14 berths. On the other hand, the BJP with 74 legislators will get a maximum of 20 berths, while the HAM(S) and VIP will settle one ministerial berth each.

Besides Kumar, eight others from the four NDA constituents BJP, JD(U), HAM and VIP may be sworn in and the cabinet may be expanded at a later stage.

Those from the JD(U) may include Ashok Choudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Shravan Kumar.

The possible induction in the ministry of Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, who was the assembly Speaker for the past five years, is being seen as an indication of the likelihood of the BJP having struck a hard bargain for the crucial post.

Ashok Choudhary, who held building construction portfolio in the previous government and is the working president of the JD(U)''s state unit, thanked Nitish Kumar for "reposing his trust in me. This is a challenging tenure during which we also need to revive our party".

The JD(U), which saw its tally fall to 43 from 71 in 2015, bore the brunt of the split in votes caused by the rebellion of Chirag Paswan''s LJP.

Others expected to be sworn in are Mukesh Sahni, the founding chief of Vikassheel Insaan Party, which has won four seats though Sahni himself lost, and Santosh Suman, whose father Jitan Ram Manjhi is a former chief ministr and the president of Hindustani Awam Morcha.