Patna, July 28: The NDA government of Bihar, which today won the trust vote on the floor of the Assembly, is now working overtime to finalise the list of names to be included in chief minister Nitish Kumar's new cabinet.

According to the rules, the state cabinet can have a maximum of 35 ministers plus the chief minister.

The NDA constituents have agreed on a broad formula for cabinet seat-sharing, said a source in the know. The JDU will have 19 ministers and the remaining 16 will be from the other parties. "To begin with all the ministerial births would not be filled and the first cabinet expansion is likely to witness inclusion of around 25 ministers," added the source.

Apart from the JDU and the BJP, the NDA in Bihar has Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) as its constituents.

The BJP has been given the responsibility of dealing with the LJP, the RLSP and HAMS and discussing the modalities about ministerial births with these parties.

As part of this exercise, a team of senior BJP leaders consisting of deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, BJP state unit president Nityanand Rai and senior BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav held deliberations with Manjhi and Ram Vilas this afternoon.

"Manjhi categorically told the BJP team that he didn't want a ministerial birth as he has already held the post of chief minister of the state in the past," said a senior BJP leader who was part of the team that met the HAMS leader.

Manjhi happens to be the lone HAMS legislator in the state Assembly. The party has no member in the legislative council.

The BJP leader, who spoke under cover of anonymity, also revealed that the LJP would be part of the state cabinet but how many of their members would get ministerial berths had not been decided.

The LJP has two members in the state Assembly and one member in the council.

The BJP leaders were likely to have a meeting with RLSP leaders late this evening. The RLSP has two MLAs and one MLC in the state legislature.

A very senior leader of the BJP hinted that as far as his party was concerned, the final call would be taken by the central leadership and special emphasis was to be laid for striking a balance so that leaders representing important caste groups like extremely backward castes (EBC), other backward classes, Dalits and forward castes could be represented in the cabinet.

"There is a possibility of tilt towards the EBC quota as this group constitutes around 30 per cent of the state voters," added the BJP leader.

The BJP leader also hinted that some new faces were likely to be included in the cabinet from the party's quota.

JDU sources too said that some young faces might get place in the new cabinet.

"Nitish Kumar appears to be in a mood of working at a breakneck pace now," said a JDU insider. "He would set tough task for his ministers and hence some old ones may make way for new ones to get the desired results."

The formation of the new cabinet is likely to be completed within 48 hours, said a senior BJP leader who is closely associated with the deliberations going on in the NDA camp for finalising the names of leaders who would get ministerial berths.

"Nitish ji wants the government to start functioning in a full-fledged manner at the earliest," the BJP leader added.