New Delhi: Nitish Kumar on Sunday (January 28) morning met Bihar governor Governor Rajendra Arlekar and resigned as chief minister of the state. He is expected to stake claim to form the government again, but this time in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rather than the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The governor has accepted the Janata Dal (United) leader’s resignation, PTI reported, and asked him to continue as the caretaker chief minister until the new government is formed.
Soon after his resignation, Nitish said, “We were working on an alliance (INDIA) for the last one and a half years but things were not working out. Now, we will form a new alliance.”
“This situation came because not everything was alright…I was getting views from everyone. I listened to all of them. Today, the government has been dissolved…” he said.
Hours after Nitish’s resignation, the decision was reportedly taken that Bihar will now have two new deputy chief ministers – Vijay Sinha and Samrat Choudhary, both from the BJP.
Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD is currently the single-largest party in the 243-member Bihar Assembly, with 79 MLAs – but is far behind the halfway mark (122) on its own. The BJP is the second-largest party, with 78 MLAs, and the JD(U) has 45 MLAs.
The past week had been rife with speculation about Nitish’s move. The Bihar chief minister is famous for his regular shifts between alliances, irrespective of ideology. As The Wire has reported, Nitish has a habit of being fickle towards his allies. In 2017, the RJD was in the dark when Nitish suddenly announced his decision to quit the Mahagathbandhan. Then, when he left the BJP two years ago, the saffron party’s leaders too had no clue, until he announced his decision to again switch camps. Reports now suggest that even Lalu Prasad Yadav, with whom Nitish goes back a long time both as friend and foe, wasn’t aware of any new move by Nitish.
INDIA alliance leaders have criticised Nitish’s move. “There is Ram in Ayodhya and Paltu Ram in Bihar. The BJP and Amit Shah himself had called Nitish Paltu Ram when he had joined hands with Lalu. Shah had said that BJP’s doors are closed for Nitish Kumar. Now what happened to that? The BJP people are the bigger Paltu Ram,” Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut said.
“There are many people like this in the country. Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram,” Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said.