Nitish splits with BJP, step down as Bihar CM
Nitish Kumar on Tuesday met Governor Phagu Chauhan and tendered his resignation as chief minister of the NDA government in Bihar.
Kumar is expected to form a fresh government, armed with the support of the entire opposition, including the RJD and the Left parties.
Kumar tendered his resignation to Governor Phagu Chauhan, after a meeting of MPs and MLAs of JD(U) where ally BJP was accused of “backstabbing”. State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Sanjay Jaiswal hit back, accusing Kumar of “betraying the mandate of 2020 assembly polls for which Nitish Kumar will be punished by the people of Bihar”.
After the JD( U) meeting, Kumar drove to Raj Bhavan to tender his resignation from where he returned to his residence, stopping to inform the press that all party MPs and MLAs were in consensus that they should leave the BJP-led NDA alliance.
Kumar said, “All MPs and MLAs reached a consensus that we should leave the NDA. Soon after, I resigned as Bihar CM.”
“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,” he added.
After meeting Chauhan, Kumar went to the residence of former chief minister Rabri Devi where all leaders of the Grand Alliance, comprising RJD, Congress and the Left, had gathered. Kumar returned with leader of the opposition and his former deputy Tejashwi Yadav, who was armed with a letter of support for Kumar. About 15 minutes later, Kumar met the Governor again to stake claim for forming a new government, this time accompanied by Yadav and senior colleagues in the JD(U) besides former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi whose four MLA-strong Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) has expressed “unconditional support” to the new formation. The chief minister is understood to have told party legislators and MPs that he had been driven against the wall by the BJP which tried to weaken his JD(U)
RCP Singh was made a cabinet minister at the Centre without Kumar’s explicit agreement. Consequently, when his term as a Rajya Sabha member ended, the JD( U) refused to give him another term as an MP, thus ending his stint as cabinet minister as well.
Following this, rumours of a split in the JD(U) engineered by Singh’s supporters surfaced.
Relations between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the JD(U) have been worsening for quite some time in the wake of disagreements over a host of issues including caste census, population control and the ‘Agnipath’ defence recruitment scheme.
CPIML (Liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya had told PTI on Monday the crux of the row between JD(U) and BJP also stemmed from the recent statement by J P Nadda, president of the saffron party, who said regional parties “have no future”.