With months left for Bihar to head to the Assembly polls, JD(U) chief and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is expanding his Cabinet by inducting as many as six new ministers. 

As per the Bihar Information and Public Relations Department, the new ministers will be sworn in at 4 pm in Raj Bhavan. Though there is no official word from Nitish or JD(U) about who will be the new inductees, speculations are that BJP will get the lion's share of four ministers. 

The two remaining will likely be from the JD(U). At present, the BJP has 15 and JD(U) 13 ministers. The BJP names doing the rounds are Krishna Kumar Mantu Patel (Amanaut), Jivesh Mishra (Jale), Sanjay Saraogi (Darbhanga), Motilal Prasad (Riga), Raju Singh (Sahebganj), Vijay Kumar Mandal (Araria) and Tarkishore Prasad (Kathihar). 

Bihar's BJP in-charge Vinod Tawde is reportedly in talks with the high command to get the final nod for the list of new ministers to be sworn in. Engineer Sunil is one of the JD(U) probables. 

However, the decision about the induction of a minister from the JD(U) quota will likely be taken by CM Nitish himself. 

The cabinet expansion will take place two days before the commencement of the budget session of the Bihar legislature. 

The development comes days after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Modi too had visited Bihar two days ago. 

Speculations are that the BJP has demanded a better presence within the cabinet as part of their election strategy. The BJP feel many states and regions are under-represented in the Cabinet and hence it was important to strike a balance if the coalition want to do better in the upcoming elections. 

The BJP also wants to strike a caste balance and hence it went for Motilal Prasad who belongs to the Vaishya community and Vijay Mandal from the backwards community. 

The BJP also wants representations from the forward castes, Rajput and Bhumihar. There are also reports that the BJP might opt for a woman MLA and Kavitha Paswan from the Kodha is the frontrunner. 

Women have always been a strong vote bank for both BJP and JD(U)in Bihar and Paswan can be an ideal candidate as she also comes from the backward community.