In a major political development, JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar resigned as the chief minister of Bihar soon after his party decided to walk out of the National Democratic Alliance. Nitish met Governor Phagu Chauhan and submitted his resignation. He is expected to stake claim to form a fresh government with the support of opposition parties.
Earlier, Nitish held a meeting of his party MLAs and MPs where he is understood to have told them that he had been driven against the wall by the BJP which tried to weaken his party, first by propping up Chirag Paswan's rebellion and later through the party's former national president RCP Singh.
"All the meetings with the MPs, MLAs and MLCs of both the houses were held today. Everyone's wish was that we should leave NDA. So as everyone wished, we accepted the same and submitted the resignation from the post of the Chief Minister in the NDA government," Nitish said after meeting the governor.
Notably, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had accompanied Nitish to the Raj Bhavan. After meeting the governor, Both Nitish and Yadav arrived at the residence of RJD leader Rabri Devi in Patna.
This is the second time in the last eight years that Nitish has split with the NDA.
In the state assembly, which has an effective strength of 242, requiring 121 MLAs for a majority, the RJD has the highest number of 79 MLAs followed by the BJP (77) and the JD(U) with 44. The JD(U) also enjoys the support of four MLAs of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha and an Independent.
The Congress has 19 MLAs while the CPIML(L) has 12 and CPI and CPI(M) have two each.
Besides, one MLA belongs to Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM.
With PTI inputs
