Bihar’s Nitish makes virtue of necessity, quits
New CM to be picked today; Sharad promises a surprise
Reeling under the humiliating washout of the Janata Dal- United ( JD- U) in the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar and facing rising attacks both from within the party and a massively strengthened BJP- led NDA, chief minister and JD( U) stalwart Nitish Kumar on Saturday resigned from his post and also submitted his Cabinet’s resignation.
The embattled Mr Kumar, whose resignation was accepted by governor D. Y. Patil in the evening with a request to continue in a caretaker capacity, said he stepped down taking “full moral responsibility” for the JD- U’s drastic decline from 20 seats in 2009 to just two seats in the 2014 LS polls. Mr Kumar, however, did not recommend dissolution of the state Assembly, which has a year- and- a- half left in its term. In what was widely speculated to be a politically smart move aimed at making the most of an utterly lose- lose situation for himself and the JDU, Mr Kumar said all paths were now open for the formation of an alternative government. This implicit offer to a triumphant and taunting BJP to form government without having enough MLAs was read by political analysts as potentially a booby- trap for the saffron party.
While the BJP currently appears unwilling to form government and Mr Kumar is widely expected to be reelected as the leader of the JD( U)’ s legislative party in its MLAs’ meeting slated for Sunday, JD- U president Sharad Yadav, who himself lost the Madhepura election, sent out conflicting signals. Indicating the possibility of the party tying up with its bitterest rival, the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the JD( U) chief told reporters in Delhi: “A CM candidate will be decided tomorrow... We will take a decision tomorrow which will surprise the nation. We will save the country.” Significantly, the RJD chief, speaking in Patna, did not directly deny such a possibility, saying he was “waiting and watching”.
Continued from p1 Dissent against Mr Kumar’s leadership style and campaign strategy within the JD( U) had become more vocal earlier in the day, with his close aide and MLA Gyanendra Singh Gyanu speaking out to the media. What apparently propelled Mr Kumar’s decision following the poll rout was LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan’s statement that the minority JDU government would fall in two or three months. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had said on Friday that Mr Kumar should resign on moral grounds. In Patna, without naming his top rival Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister- elect, even once, Mr Kumar indirectly attacked the BJP’s campaign causing “polarisation along communal lines” and sarcastically asked the saffron party to turn into reality “all the dreams they gave the people”. “We will analyse the reasons of the poll outcome extensively later, but the trend seen across Bihar and the outcome clearly proves the impact of polarisation along communal lines, which hardly happened earlier in the country. Some of its aspects that have emerged are not good for the country, he said.