Nitish Kumar during his oath taking ceremony as Bihar Chief Minister for a third straight term. (PTI photo)
At 2 pm on Friday, Nitish Kumar took oath as Bihar chief minister on a massive stage at Patna's Gandhi Maidan. Lalu Yadav's son Tejaswi Yadav was the next to be sworn in, followed by his older brother Tej Pratap; both are first time lawmakers.
Following are the 10 developments in this story:
Tejaswi Yadav, 26, has been appointed as Bihar's new deputy chief minister in a nod to the stupendous performance in the Bihar elections of Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, the single largest party with 80 seats in the new assembly.
Nitish Kumar will hold the Home and Personnel portfolios. Tejaswi has been allotted Road and Building Construction while his brother Tejpratap gets Health.
As he was sworn in, Nitish Kumar also assumed a new role. That of poster boy for opposition unity as parties and political leaders who oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party converged for the ceremony in a show of strength.
Congress vice-president arrived late, his flight was delayed by bad weather. His party is a member of the coalition government that Nitish Kumar leads and four of the Congress' 27 new lawmakers are now ministers.
PM Modi, whose aggressive campaign in Bihar failed to enthuse voters, was invited for today's ceremony, and deputed Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu to attend.
But BJP allies, the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal attended. The Shiv Sena sent two Maharashtra ministers and Punjab deputy chief minister and Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Badal was present.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee attended as did Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference.
But chief minister of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav cancelled. Akhilesh Yadav's Samjawadi Pary walked out of the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance over a seat sharing dispute.
Left leader Sitaram Yechury attended the event. From Tamil Nadu, DMK leader M Karunanidhi sent son MK Stalin.
28 minsters were sworn in along with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who hosted his political guests at his residence for high tea. The united opposition photo-op comes just before the winter session of Parliament begins. The BJP's humiliating defeat has re-energised opposition parties, who have stalled key reform bills in the last few sessions.
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