Nitish Kumar invited to form government, swearing-in Friday (Second Lead)

PATNA - After sweeping the Bihar polls, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was Thursday formally invited to form the government again. He will be sworn-in Friday.

Soon after Nitish Kumar was unanimously elected leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) legislature party - comprising legislators of his Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he, along with other NDA leaders, met Governor Debananda Konwar and handed over letters of support from the newly-elected legislators of the twin-party alliance.

The governor invited Nitish Kumar to form the government and the time for swearing-in was fixed.

Top BJP leaders include party president Nitin Gadkari, L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh, and Sushma Swaraj would be among the distinguished guests present at the swearing-in ceremony at the Gandhi Maidan here 2.30 p.m. Friday.

According to sources close to Nitish Kumar, a 35-member ministry with 20 from the JD-U and 15 from the BJP would also be sworn in Friday.

Earlier, Nitish Kumar was elected leader of the JD-U legislature party and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi was elected leader of the BJP legislature party, before the legislators met to elect their leader.

“Nitish Kumar was elected at a meeting of the newly elected party legislators of JD-U and BJP in the presence of JD-U president Sharad Yadav and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley,” a JD-U leader said.

The NDA combine swept the Bihar assembly polls with the JD-U winning 115 seats and the BJP 91 seats in the 243-member house.