Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday personally called the 22 ministers - who were either sacked or had resigned from the Jitan Ram Manjhi government - to take oath as ministers.
The ministers' phones started beeping from 10am. The first person to get the call was senior leader Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, followed by Bijendra Prasad and Dalit leader Ramai Ram.
Shyam Rajak got the call at 10.30am. 'He (read Nitish) called me at 10.30am saying I must be present at Raj Bhavan to take oath. I thanked him and said I would be there on time,' said Rajak.
Nitish personally made calls to the MLAs and MLCs to take oath as ministers for the first time, departing from the tradition of communicating through Raj Bhavan. The new ritual could be the fallout of the fortnight-long political turmoil before Nitish came to power, which Bihar has never experienced.
'This time, so many things happened for the first time in the state - as many as 130 MLAs flew to Delhi and paraded at Rashtrapati Bhavan. He has come into power after overcoming several obstacles. So, people should not be amazed that Nitish personally made calls to the ministers,' said a senior JDU MLA who took oath at Raj Bhavan on Sunday.
A Dal MLA sniffed Nitish's bid to prove himself the boss in his calls to the ministers. 'He personally called them because he wanted to make them realise that they are again becoming ministers because of him,' said the MLA.
Till Saturday night, nobody received calls from anyone for taking oath at Raj Bhavan. A few would-be ministers got the call very late on Sunday. The first-time ministers were a bit jittery till Nitish dialled their numbers.
Ranju Geeta, who was made the minister for the first time in the Manjhi government, said: 'I received the call very late, but I am happy that Nitish ji has given me an opportunity to work under him. I know that he is a serious person and I shall try my level best to live up to his expectations.'
Ranju was one of the MLAs to host a lunch party in the run-up to the proposed February 20 floor test in the Assembly, which Manjhi avoided by tendering his resignation to the governor.
Another MLA who would be working under Nitish for the first time is Jai Kumar. Speaking on his new boss, Jai Kumar said: 'I shall follow his footsteps. He always talks about development with justice. He is our leader and would work according to his wish.'
Manjeet Kumar Singh - touted to be in the race of ministers - surprisingly played truant from the oath-taking ceremony and left for his constituency Baikunthpur apparently after not getting Nitish's call. When The Telegraph asked the reason behind missing the ceremony at Raj Bhavan, Manjeet said: 'I have a lot of programmes in my constituency and I must congratulate Nitish ji for becoming the chief minister once again.'
Most of the Manjhi's loyalists also skipped the oath-taking ceremony.
