It is the Nitish Kumar sarkar in Bihar, but with a clear Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominance.

Twenty-six ministers took oath in Patna on Thursday. Fourteen of them were from the BJP and only eight from the JDU. Though 10 more ministers can be inducted in the Cabinet and the JDU may get more ministers in the months to come, the optics of the BJP dominance on the swearing-in stage were hard to miss.

The portfolio list came out on Friday, and BJP got the all-important home portfolio for the first time in Bihar. Samrat Choudhary, the deputy chief minister from the BJP, will hold the portfolio, which was held by Kumar for most of the last two decades when he was the chief minister. This change is not minute.

The dye was cast, in fact, when both the BJP and JDU contested 101 seats apiece in Bihar. This was the first time that both parties had contested the same number of seats—the JDU traditionally always contested more. But BJP made it clear this time—there is no ‘elder brother, younger brother’ formula in Bihar anymore.

That explains that while the BJP has kept its part of the deal by making Kumar the chief minister, it has had its way by getting the home portfolio as well as denying the LJP any deputy chief minister position