A day after swearing in as the chief minister of Bihar within hours after resigning from the post and breaking away from the Grand Alliance, Nitish Kumar has moved a confidence motion in Bihar assembly to prove his majority during a one-day special session of the state assembly convened at 11 am today. Bihar governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had yesterday, after the swearing-in ceremony, asked Nitish to prove his majority on the floor of the house today.
Coming back at the helm of affairs after a series of political theatrics that involved a midnight drama, Nitish's JD (U)-led one-day old government is backed by the BJP. The NDA-JD (U) claims to have support from 132 MLAs including 71 of JD(U), BJP 53, RLSP two, LJP two, HAM one and three independents. In the 243-member Bihar Assembly, the RJD has 80 MLAs, the Congress 27 and the CPI-ML has three.
"Whatever decision we have taken will be in the interest of Bihar and of its people. It will ensure development and justice," Kumar told reporters after the swearing in.
The deft political manoeuvres by Janata Dal (United) chief Kumar left the opposition stunned on Wednesday night as he joined hands with friend-turned-foe-turned-friend BJP. The two parties were in alliance for 17 years until 2013, when Kumar walked out of the NDA fold after Narendra Modi was made the BJP's campaign committee chairman for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Modi was later declared the prime ministerial candidate.
However, Kumar, who was seen by the opposition as a possible answer to Modi in 2019 amid shrinking Congress clout, seemed to have accepted the popular thinking that the Modi- wave would continue even after two years.
JD(U) national spokesperson K C Tyagi said the decision of his party to form the grand alliance government in Bihar was "a mistake" and ruled out any possibility of a patch-up with the RJD. "It was a mistake to forge an alliance with RJD. We had information that to save themselves from CBI cases, they were in touch with the union ministers in Delhi and were planning to topple the Nitish Kumar government", Tyagi said.
"We regret our decision to run the government with such a person (Lalu Prasad) for 20 months. We blame ourselves for committing a mistake of taking their MLA count from 22 to 80," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
