New Delhi: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his ‘mahagathbandhan’ with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and other secular parties proved its majority on the floor of the Bihar Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
The new ‘grand alliance’ won the motion of confidence in the 243-member Assembly by voice vote amid a walkout by Opposition BJP.
Kumar had maneuvered his way out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA coalition two weeks ago and revived his old partnership with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD.
After breaking with the NDA on 9 August, Kumar was sworn in as Bihar Chief Minister for a record eighth time the next day, while Lalu’s son Tejashwi Yadav became his deputy.
The House session for the floor test Wednesday began with BJP MLA and Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha stepping down, as a no-confidence motion was moved against him soon after the ‘mahagathbandhan’ came to power.
Sinha protested the motion, calling it “unclear”. “Eight of the nine letters received were not as per rule,” he said. Sinha then put in his papers, “bowing before the majority”.
Before the floor test, Deputy Chief Minister and former cricketer Tejashwi Yadav said: “We are cricketers and this pair (RJD and JDU) is going to have a never-ending partnership. This is going to be the longest inning, this partnership will work for the development of Bihar and the country. No one is getting run out this time.”
In his speech, Nitish Kumar said leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani treated “me with respect. I snapped ties with the BJP in 2013 in protest against them being sidelined”.
Incidentally, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carried out raids Wednesday morning in the residences of several RJD leaders, including that of MLC Sunil Singh, in the land-for-jobs allegations when Lalu Prasad Yadav was the Union Railway Minister.
Properties of MPs Ashfaque Karim, Faiyaz Ahmed and Subodh Roy were also raided.
Former Bihar chief minister and Lalu Prasad’s wife Rabri Devi said the CBI raid was to scare the new government. “They (BJP) are scared. A new government has been formed under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. All parties except the BJP are with us. We won’t be scared. This (raids) is not happening for the first time.”
Two weeks ago, Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar walked out of his alliance with the BJP as cracks between the two became increasingly unbridgeable.
Kumar’s disenchantment with the BJP had long-festered, stemming from a feeling of being undermined by the national party. He also clashed with his alliance partner over various issues, including the Citizen Amendment Act, caste census and population laws.
This is not the first time Kumar left his long-time ally. Helming the partnership since 2005, he first walked out before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to protest Narendra Modi being made the party’s prime ministerial candidate.
He then joined the RJD – run by his old friend Lalu Prasad Yadav — and the Congress to form a grand alliance or ‘mahagathbandhan’ for the 2015 Assembly elections. The alliance defeated the BJP, and Kumar was sworn in as chief minister again.
But two years on — after the Central Bureau of Investigation slapped corruption cases against Lalu Yadav and his son Tejaswhi — Kumar demanded that Tejashwi resigns from his Cabinet. But Lalu put his foot down.
Underlining his “zero tolerance to corruption” policy, Kumar resigned as chief minister only to be made leader again within hours by the BJP, to lead the government for the remainder of the term.
In the next Assembly elections in 2020, Nitish Kumar returned as chief minister of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance with 125 seats. The RJD alliance got 110 seats.
Also read: BJP’s 3 “jamai”- CBI, ED and IT dept: Tejashwi Yadav on raids