New Delhi, July 27: A day after being sworn in as the Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar will have to prove his majority in a special session of the Bihar Assembly on Friday. The Janata Dal United chief was sworn in a hurriedly organised ceremony along with Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sushil Modi at Raj Bhavan on Thursday. Nitish broke away with the Grand Alliance in the state on Wednesday and allied with BJP to form government in the state.
Nitish’s JD(U) has 71 MLAs in the 243-member Assembly and with BJP’s 53 it can easily cross the half-way mark of 122. BJP’s allies Lok Janshakti Party, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party have 2 MLAs each while Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha has 1 MLA. All the five and three Independents are likely to support the new government. Together, they will have 132 MLAs if none of the JD(U) MLAs switch sides.
It is widely speculated that not much time was given to prove the majority so as to avoid the horse-trading and thus making it a smooth sail for the NDA-JD(U) government. Former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav accused Nitish of caging JD(U) MLAs. “Nitish Ji if you have belief in your morality and honesty then why you have caged JDU MLAs in ur house. Free them, they will tell your morality rate,” Tejashwi said.
Nitish Ji if u hv belief in ur morality & honesty thn Y u hv caged JDU MLAs in ur https://t.co/0XdOQXDH8T thm,they wil tell ur morality rate
— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) July 26, 2017
Even though the Rashtriya Janata Dal is the single largest party in the Bihar Assembly, it does not have the required number to stake claim to form the government. The RJD has 80 MLAs, the Congress has 27 and has the support of three CPI-ML MLAs, taking the number to 110. It is below the magic mark of 122.
The JD(U)-RJD-Congress Mahagathbandhan had swept the Bihar Assembly elections in 2015 by winning 178 seats in the 243-member Assembly. The 15-month-old alliance has failed to complete its term after corruption allegations surfaced against Tejashwi. The crack in the alliance started appearing after the Central Bureau of Investigation named Tejashwi in its chargesheet in an alleged corruption case. Earlier this month in a meeting with JD(U) leaders, Nitish had hinted that he expected Tejashwi’s resignation.
The BJP and JD(U) worked over recent months to revive their 17-year-long alliance which ended abruptly in June 2013 when Nitish parted ways expressing strong opposition to Narendra Modi being considered as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.
It is not just a day’s drama but the planning of several months. Time and again closeness was visible between the JD(U) and the BJP. From Nitish extending support to NDA’s Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind to supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move. In May, Nitish skipped the Opposition’s luncheon organised by the Congress to devise a strategy for the presidential election but attended a lunch hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in honour of visiting Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth. Nitish openly praised the surgical strike conducted by the Indian Army on terror launch pads in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and even hailed Modi’s demonetisation move.
Following Nitish’s resignation, Modi praised him by tweeting, “1.25 crore people are welcoming and supporting his honesty. For the bright future of the country, and especially Bihar, it is the need of the hour to rise above political differences and join the fight against corruption.”
Nitish replied Modi with a thank you note. He tweeted, “I thank the Prime Minister from the bottom of my heart for supporting the decision which I took.”
Riding on the BJP’s boat, Nitish is likely to sail smoothly and complete his full term.
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