Nitish Kumar becomes CM again, leaving the Mahagathbanthan to rejoin NDA
Nitish Kumar, tendered his resignation as Bihar chief minister as well as took his party JD(U) out of the Mahagathbandhan (‘Grand Alliance’) alliance with RJD on Sunday morning.
Then, at around 5.10 pm, took oath again as chief minister, this time as part of the NDA alliance with BJP.
He had been chief minister as part of the NDA alliance (JD(U) is the junior partner, with 45 seats, and BJP has 78 seats) till one-and-a-half years back, when he severed ties to tie up with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD (79 seats), along with the Congress (19 seats), CPI(M-L) (12 seats), CPU(M) (2 seats), CPI (2 seats) and an Independent.
Now, he is back in the NDA fold. He now has the support of the BJP (78 seats) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) (4 seats). This will take the total tally to 127, five more than the halfway mark of 122, required to prove majority in the assembly. If the one Independent legislator keeps supporting Nitish Kumar, the alliance will be 128-strong.
According to several reports, Nitish’s about turn had been in the offing ever since he was not made the INDIA bloc chairperson, despite wide support (except by the Congress), on a suggestion made by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. He strongly felt his vow to take on Narendra Modi and win would remain unfulfilled and so, said the reports, he decided, if not win against Modi, why not join him.
Kumar had resigned in the morning after presiding over a meeting of JD(U) MLAs at his official residence, where .
Kumar asserted to reporters that the INDIA bloc was not meeting expectations. He further contended that there was dissatisfaction among the people due to others in the coalition unjustly claiming credit for the work being accomplished by the bloc.
BJP leaders Samrat Choudhary (state chief) and Vijay Kumar Sinha are the new deputy chief ministers. The BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi, deputy CM for a long time and considered close to Nitish, and currently a Rajya Sabha member, has no role in the government, contrary to strong rumours.
Today is the ninth time that Nitish Kumar has taken oath as chief minister. In the current phase, Kumar has been the CM continuously from 2015. From 2015-20, Nitish was first in the Mahagathbanthan alliance, then resigned and joined hands with the BJP-led NDA, which alliance he continued when re-elected in 2020. He left NDA again in mid-2022 to rejoin the Mahagathbanthan.
The next election is scheduled in 2025, unless Kumar decides to hold the elections concurrently with the general election, giving a fillip to Narendra Modi’s ‘One Nation One Election’ concept. This, by the way, was also one of the bones of contention with the RJD towards the end.
